Open Letter to the Residents of Bayou Corne

It has come to my attention that some of the local resident’s of Bayou Corne are angry with many of us “Dry-Landers” not understanding what it means to live in a ‘bayou”.

One such sentiment is, “The beef the locals have with us cyber visitors is they say the Lake OXY 3 was there all along. Just covered in floating grass. And as part of the oil skimming deal they take up the grass exposing black oily water. But it is not new water they say. So they say sinkhole isn’t expanding. We are just seeing more swamp due to grass removal and tree die off.
They are getting peeved that we don’t get their view point.”

My response is this… a bayou is defined as, “a marshy arm, inlet, or outlet of a lake, river, etc., usually sluggish or stagnant. or any of various other often boggy and slow-moving or still bodies of water.”

Also I have been in the swamps many times over the last 35 years with friends all over Louisiana, so I do have a clue as well.

But I have never been in any swamp or bayou that is 145 ft. deep. That is more of a lake, and so is the reason I named that small area, “Lake Oxy 3”.

This in no way implies that there wasn’t water in a bayou to begin with, as that would be silly, but since the subsidence, (or slough off as Texas Brine and DNLR are calling it as well as slurry), the natural fresh (fresh is a stretch I know, but even stagnant is considered fresh), waters and evidently brine have co-mingled to create “Lake Oxy 3” and I named it that to remind everyone of Texas Brine and it’s customer Oxy, or Occidental.

Nor have many been claiming that the actual tear in the earth is getting larger, because we can’t see it any better than ya’ll can, so we rely on the updates just as ya’ll do.

What most of us, and LDNR are so concerned about is the rising waters. It is that time of year when the waters rise, which of course then intersects with all other surrounding waterways, canals and bayous, thereby carrying all of the crap rising out of the sinkhole, cave-in, whatever you want to call it to your back doors. The rise in the salinity of the surrounding waters is a major concern but even more alarming is the hydrocarbons that Texas Brine just got fined for not containing properly.

I quote the last 4th Amendment to Last Order, :

http://dnr.louisiana.gov/assets/OC/BC_All_Updates/ORDER_DIRECTIVES/CP_4thEmergDec_2012.pdf

These are our concerns as well. Is this what you folks want to be surrounded by? As the waters of Lake Oxy 3 rise, so too shall all of the environmental and human damages also begin to rise. Even the Police Jury seems to understand as evidenced by their last statement;

“A resolution was approved requesting that Texas Brine consider providing the option of a buyout or relocation to the residents of Bayou Corne.” and ” A resolution was approved to object to any and all extensions, contingencies, or modifications to the orders invoked by the Department of Natural Resources onto Texas Brine specific to the sinkhole.”

http://assumptionla.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/920-a-m-police-jury-resolutions/

As per the all of the above reasons, I urge all of you still in Bayou Corne to heed the Jury’s resolution. I hate letting the oil and brine and natural gas people win, and I truly believe they should be forced to pay double for all properties and relocation, but this is truly a lost cause. There is no way for Texas Brine or anyone else that will be able to contain the TPH’s, the chloride’s or the TDS’s once the waters reach that magical level when this is no longer a highly localized matter, but an area wide contamination.

So forgive all of us “Dry-Landers” for not showing more compassion and understanding when we report on just Texas Brine and LDNR, such as;

LOUISIANA DNR COMPLICIT IN SINKHOLE COVERUP!

https://freedomrox.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/louisiana-dnr-complicit-in-sinkhole-coverup/

Then to hear that your neighbors over in Doyline are dealing with their own explosive crisis.

“Weather could complicate the transfer of roughly 6 million pounds of explosives that were haphazardly stored at an industrial site in northwestern Louisiana and led to the evacuation of a small town, a state police spokeswoman said Monday.” is just beyond belief and heart breaking.

Forgive us for our ignorance, but please understand our passion for getting the right thing done, and whether you know it or not, doing the right thing by all of ya’ll as well.

As Kenny Rogers said in his song, “Sometimes…you have to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.”

Ultimately, that choice is up to you, the people whom live in a paradise turned nightmare.