Posted: Sunday, 30 September 2012 6:33AM

Sinkhole grows, hits Assumption business and home values

Don Ames/AP Reporting

The sinkhole in Assumption Parish keeps getting bigger.

The parish's director of homeland security and emergency preparedness, John Boudreaux, says a 15-hundred square foot section of the earth caved in last week, pulling down several trees and part of a road.

The road that caved in was built to assist in the cleanup efforts. The sinkhole is about four acres in size and has grown since it emerged on August third.

150 homes in two nearby communities are evacuated as a result of the sinkhole.

Experts believe an underground brine cavern encased in a salt dome could be the cause of the sink hole. Sonar testing inside the cavern began a few days ago.

Boudreaux says an unknown substance was found at the bottom of the cavern. "The substance could be soil and sand that now has entered the cavern that created the sinkhole."

Scientists are still trying to determine precisely why the hole appeared.

Residents and businesses in the area are growing increasingly concerned that it may swallow up their investments.

The hole filled with sludge and muck as it swallowed hundreds of yards of swampland.
 

Area residents have been worried not only by tremors, possibly caused by natural gas shifting underground in or near the dome, but also by concerns the value of their homes and business could suffer.