Three bills crafted in response to a 15-acre sinkhole in Assumption Parish and an on-going evacuation order for 350 residents are headed to Gov. Bobby Jindal's desk.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Three bills crafted in response to a 15-acre sinkhole in Assumption Parish and an on-going evacuation order for 350 residents are headed to Gov. Bobby Jindal's desk.
Sponsors of the measures say they are intended to help prevent similar occurrences by requiring stricter guidelines for monitoring and assessing areas around salt domes, including surveying salt dome formations every five years, and stiffer penalties for violations.
Officials say survey maps for the Assumption Parish salt dome were outdated and didn't reveal that the underground storage cavern was being mined too close to the edge of the dome, which officials have said caused the sidewall collapse that created the sinkhole.