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Lake Peigneur is an area of approximately 455 hectares of water that was once popular with water enthusiasts. A depth of only 3 meters made this cool lake safe enough and full of fish. Along the lake there is a botanical garden, parks and beautiful walks. True, there was industry here too: Peniere always had several cargo barges, and since 1919 there have been salt mines alongside.
Louisiana is rich in salt. Underground here are huge layers of salt formed in domes that are equivalent to the tallest mountains on the planet. Part of the shafts of the salt mines are also located under the lake. Specifically, it was.
In 1980, he drilled on Lake Texaco in search of oil fields. Since the lake was shallow, it was a fairly straightforward job. The only thing to avoid was a large layer of salt, which contained an underground mine. You probably already understand what happened.
On November 20, a 35 cm drill was driven into salt. The drilling rig workers were shocked because, according to the plans, they had not yet reached the salt. Soon the entire platform tipped over and they had to evacuate. They watched from shore as a large drilling rig disappeared into a supposedly shallow lake.
At that moment, unsuspecting mine workers noticed what they never wanted to see: water seeping through the roof. A hole in the roof that looked like spring snow looked like spring snow and 55 miners began to evacuate. The good news is that the evacuation procedures were well thought out and some heroic-hearted men helped others. No one died, 6 salt mine workers later received awards for bravery and dedication.
At that moment, Penier disappeared into the vortex. It was as if the devil’s throat was sucking everything up: 11 large cargo barges were soon gone. Surprisingly, no one died. Barge crews and people fishing in the lake managed to escape and watched from a distance as 9 billion liters of water disappeared somewhere.
Soon the shore began to disintegrate, centuries-old trees fell into the water and the greenhouses of the botanical garden. Naturally, that small hole grew over time and the bottom of the lake took on a new shape. The mine, with all the equipment it contained, simply disappeared and the air that flowed from it rumbled through the mine entrances. Finally, 120 meter high fountains were formed here. And then things got even weirder.
Lake Peniero is connected by a channel to the Gulf of Mexico, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. The excess water from the lake flowed into the ocean through that channel. But now the place where Lake Penier once stood was much lower than the canal. So the water from the Atlantic Ocean, which, as you know, is salty, began to flow into the Penier. When the water in the canal changed direction, a 50 meter high waterfall formed in the lake. It took 2 days for the lake and mine to fill up and it has been salty ever since.
People sometimes speculate that it is salty due to the dissolved salts, but it appears to be just ocean salts. When the pressure stabilized, 9 of the 11 barges came to the surface. The workers dug up the salt again, but no longer from the mines under the lake. Salt was mined here until 1986.
Who is to blame for this catastrophe that changed Lake Peniero, its entire life and its surroundings? Texaco and the drilling contractors paid $ 32 million to the Diamond Crystal salt miners. Another 12.8 million was paid to the botanical garden and other victims. The evidence sank somewhere at the bottom of the lake, but it is clear that a mistake was made: the drilling did not take place where planned in advance.
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