Lake Peigneur
| Lake Peigneur | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Geographical location | United States ( Louisiana ) | |
| Tributaries | about 0.24 m³ per second from the surrounding area | |
| Drain | Delcambre Canal | |
| Location close to the shore | Delcambre , Lafayette | |
| Data | ||
| Coordinates | 29 ° 58 ′ 51 ″ N , 91 ° 59 ′ 0 ″ W | |
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| surface | 5 km² | |
| Maximum depth | 61 m | |
| Middle deep | 1 m | |
The lake peigneur is a lake in the state of Louisiana . It is located about two kilometers north of the city of Delcambre and 15 km south of Lafayette .
history
The lake consisted of fresh water until the beginning of the 1980s and was popular as a water sports facility about three meters deep. On November 20, 1980, a drilling accident caused by the Texaco company changed the lake and the surrounding area. Lake Peigneur is now a 60 meter deep salt lake .
Course of events
There was a salt mine below the lake ; Texaco was drilling for oil on the surface of the water. Due to miscalculation of the drill penetrated into the workings of the third sole in 1500 feet (450 meters) depth a. Similar to removing the plug in the bathtub , the water from the lake drained into the hole, constantly increasing it by dissolving salt. The cavities created by the breakdown of the salt were gradually filled with water. The resulting vortex swallowed the drilling platform , eleven barges , many trees and a total of 260,000 m² of surrounding area.
Large amounts of water flowed into the mine workings at high speed, causing the level of the lake to drop so far that the direction of flow of the Delcambre Canal was temporarily reversed and this now channeled water from Vermillion Bay into the hole in the lake. As a result of this reflux, the largest waterfall in Louisiana, about 50 meters high, formed for a few days . The trapped air led to geysers up to 12 m high at the mine shaft .
Twelve drilling workers and a fisherman each escaped by boat, the crew of a tugboat in the canal by jumping to the bank, and 50 troubled miners finally alerted them with the shaft hoisting system .
consequences
Nobody was injured by the accident. Texaco and Wilson Brothers paid $ 32 million in compensation to mining company Diamond Crystal. Furthermore, an agreement was reached on compensation of 12.8 million to Live Oak Gardens. In December 1986 the salt mine was finally closed. AGL Ressources has been using the salt dome under Lake Peigneur as a gas storage facility since 1994 . In October 2012, for example, there was a work volume of 212 million m 3 in two caverns .
literature
- Michael Gold: Who Pulled the Plug on Lake Peigneur? . Science, Vol. 81, Nov. 1982, pp. 56-63.
- Charles Perrow: Normal Accidents . New York: Basic Books, 1984, pp. 251-253.
- Danny Kringiel: The black hole in Lake Peigneur . Spiegel Online (one day), November 19, 2010
Web links
- Oil rig disasters
- Lake Peigneur: The biggest sinkhole ever created
- Lake Peigneur in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey
- Oil Driller Breaches Salt Mine Under Louisana Lake ; Youtube video (History Channel), 8:23 am
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lake Peigneyr TMDLS for dissolved oxygen and nutrients EPA report from 2002
- ↑ graphic and pictorial representation of the incident
- ↑ According to a report on the History Channel Lake Peigneur (disappearing lake) History Channel footage video on YouTube , the fisherman Leonce Viator, Jr. managed to drive his boat to the beach and fasten it to a tree. He later watched his boat being swallowed along with the tree. (Video blocked - October 30, 2012)
- ↑ Oil Driller Breaches Salt Mine Under Louisana Lake . History Channel report ( copy on Youtube , accessed July 5, 2017)
- ↑ www.lakepeigneurfacts.com - website with explanations about the memory. - (Website not accessible in this way, October 30, 2012) ( Memento of the original from October 10, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Jefferson Island Storage & Hub
