Tag Archives: Assumption

by Debbie Elliott | March 20, 2013

Louisiana officials are grappling with a giant sinkhole that’s threatening a neighborhood. A salt mine collapsed last year, creating a series of problems regulators say they’ve never seen before, including tremors and oil and gas leaks and a sinkhole that now covers 9 acres.

Residents have been evacuated for more than seven months now and are losing patience.

Ernie Boudreaux lives in a trailer on Jambalaya Street in Bayou Corne, La. Strange things have been happening to his home, he says.

“It cracks. You can hear it. The doors pop open by themselves,” Boudreaux says.

The front porch is separating from the trailer and sometimes he smells oil — all problems that started after the sinkhole opened less than a half mile from his house. His neighborhood is under a mandatory evacuation, but Boudreaux comes back a few days a week to care for his dog, Diesel.

Houston-based Texas Brine has been mining salt near the Bayou Corne community for more than 40 years. The company is now paying evacuated residents $875 a week to cover temporary housing costs. But Boudreaux, a welder, says he can’t find a rental that takes pets the size of Diesel, so he stays with his sister some and then comes home. He wants a more permanent solution.

“That $875 a week is hush-hush money — keep everybody quiet and just let it settle down. I say, I’m not letting this settle down. You talking about land, home that we can’t come back to,” Boudreaux says. “And if you do, it ain’t worth nothing.”

Read more:  http://www.kqed.org/