Sinkhole explosive methane officially life threatening, residents not told

In this case, no news is bad news, but Official News is pretty bad, too..  The Examiner.  Excerpts:

Officials advised the Assumption Parish President on Thursday that Bayou Corne sinkhole area has high levels of methane in nearby water wells, posing risks to health, fire and explosion and that residents need to heed the mandatory evacuation order. That day, parish officials postponed Saturday's resident briefing with no explanation.


“Of the chemicals reviewed, only methane, detected in the industrial water wells, presents a potential health risk (Type 2 of fire/explosion),” Dr. Raoult Ratard, State Epidemiologist of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Office (DHH) of Public Health stated in an environmental data report of the Bayou Corne oil and gas sinkhole event sent to Assumption Parish President Martin S. Triche Thursday.
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Speculations are increasing that methane is the mysterious "powerful underground force" wreaking havoc in south Louisiana, including the sinkhole disaster area.


Methane gas leaks are spreading throughout the south Louisiana area. Within four months, as of this week, methane bubbling sites have increased to twenty-eight, including in Pierre Part, outside the mandatory evacuation area but within hearing distance and jolts of seismic activities where foul chemical odors are nauseating and burning, as some residents there have reported.
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So what's the worst case scenario?  (Same author, same site, from August 5)

If any of the melted methane at the ocean bottom has access to strata which could also fracture, could it travel horizontally underground for some distance, to surface miles away?


In “The Worst-Case Scenario,” a frightening "low-probability" scenario was described on Huffington Post by DK Matai, Chairman of Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance (ATCA) & The Philanthropia. Matai highlighted the possibility of the "massive bubble trapped for thousands of years under the Gulf of Mexico sea floor" exploding and setting off a "tsunami [traveling] at a high speed of hundreds of miles per hour."

"There are serial resistances along channels, say along stata or their boundaries; transverse resistances between channels; and transverse capacitances which are voids where gas can be stored at applied pressures," retired neuroscientist Paul Brown explained to Deborah Dupré Saturday. "In the case of a long-lasting increase of source pressure due to an undersea rupture, as the gas travels along the longitudinal channels, pressure buildup is slower and slower at greater and greater distances.

"For distances of many miles, it’s conceivable that this pressure buildup could take months or years. If the pressure at the input, from the undersea methane pool, is maintained over this period, then capacitances will charge (pressure will build up to near the source pressure) along the channels, and fracturing may occur (like short-circuiting some of the transverse resistances due to displacement of material between high- and low-pressure compartments), allowing gas to travel both vertically and horizontally into areas not originally accessible."

According to Brown, "The fact that methane is more compressible than water is irrelevant over long periods and with a sufficient supply of high-pressure methane.

Short Answer:  Big-Ass BOOM!  Big Waves.  Lots of steam.  Low probability, though, so that's a relief, right?  I guess the key now is how to stop the sinkhole from spreading, for which there is still not an answer.  And there are still no acceptable answers for all the nervous Cajuns waiting for the next shoe to drop..

NEW 4-Mile Long Oil Slick Near BP’s Gulf Oil Well

BP’s Macondo Well May Leak for Years.  Washington's Blog.  Excerpts:

From CNN:

An oil sheen about four miles long has appeared in the Gulf of Mexico near the site of the worst oil spill in U.S. history, a Coast Guard spokesman said Thursday.


It was not immediately clear where the oil is coming from, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Tippets. [Although previous oil has been matched as a "dead ringer" to the BP well.]

Coast Guardsmen went to the location after seeing the oil on a satellite image, Tippets said. The response team collected samples and sent them to the Coast Guard Marine Safety Lab in Connecticut for testing.
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The sheen is near the spot where, on April 20, 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded over the Macondo well, killing 11 workers and spewing oil that spread across a huge portion of the Gulf.

This is interesting, and a little disturbing to boot.. 
(Interview by Washington's Blog with Dr. Robert Bea, a member of the Deepwater Horizon Study Group.)

WB: I have heard that BP is underestimating the size of the oil reservoir. Is it possible that the reservoir is bigger than BP is estimating, and so – if not completely killed – the leak could therefore go on for longer than most assume?


Bea: That’s plausible.

WB: The chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon said that the Macondo well was originally drilled in another location, but that “going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools”, and that BP abandoned that well. You’ve spoken to that technician and looked into the incident, and concluded that “they damn near blew up the rig.”

Do you know where that abandoned well location is, and do you know if that well is still leaking?

Bea: The abandoned well is very close to the current well location. BP had to file reports showing the location of the abandoned well and the new well [with the Minerals Management Service], so the location of the abandoned well is known.

We don’t know if the abandoned well is leaking.

WB: Matthew Simmons talked about a second leaking well. There are rumors on the Internet that the original well is still leaking. Do you have any information that can either disprove or confirm that allegation?

Bea: There are two uncorroborated reports. One is that there is a leak 400 feet West of the present well’s surface location. There is another report that there is a leak several miles to the West.

[Bea does not know whether either report is true at this time, because BP is not sharing information with the government, let alone the public.]

Random, unacknowledged oil leaks for decades to come?  Who said environmental disasters can't be fun? 

China's Massive Pipeline Fire/Oil Spill Will Blow Your Mind, Baby.. (UPDATE)

Here's the thing:  I haven't seen this anywhere else(Yet) and therefore isn't fully verified.  But look at the photos and tell me they're not from the same event.  Whatever is happening in China looks to be big.  Big.
Above Top Secret.  Excerpts - More Pictures at the link:


I work in the marine industry and I occasionally get some emails that are what you might term (not mainstream media worthy)…when in fact they are.
Today I received an email about a pipeline rupture in China. I have NOT seen any of these pictures or heard anything on the news about this. To my knowledge, this occurred a couple of weeks ago and is still on going.
IMO this puts BP’s Deep Water Horizon to shame. This information needs to get out; it is crazy that this has not received the same attention. I am trying to verify this from other sites but I can’t from work as all websites that are owned by China are blocked in my company (and I’m at work). Maybe some of you can help here and spread this.
There are quite a few pictures below.

Actually, I've tried posting pictures twice, with no luck.  I blame blogger gremlins.  Or Society.  Go to the link.  If this isn't a hoax, it is a multi-tiered, ongoing, full on Enviornmental Catastrophe.

**UPDATE**  My non-paid, but very thorough fact checker has declared this event is from 2010.  It happened, but is not recent.  Thank you, Maria!

We Can't Say We Weren't Warned..

Life on this Earth Just Changed …The North Atlantic Current is Gone… Excerpt in italics:
The latest satellite data establishes that the North Atlantic Current (also called the North Atlantic Drift) no longer exists and along with it the Norway Current. These two warm water currents are actually part of the same system that has several names depending on where in the Atlantic Ocean it is. The entire system is a key part of the planet’s heat regulatory system; it is what keeps Ireland and the United Kingdom mostly ice free and the Scandinavia countries from being too cold; it is what keeps the entire world from another Ice Age. This Thermohaline Circulation System is now dead in places and dying in others.