Citation Needed - Lake Peigneur

Episode Date: November 28, 2018

Lake Peigneur (locally pronounced [pæ̃j̃æ̹ɾ]) is a saline[A]lake in the US state of Louisiana, 1.2 miles (1.9 km) north of Delcambre and 9.1 miles (14.6 km) west of New Iberia, near the northernmost tip of Vermilion Bay. With a maximum depth of 200 feet (61 m), it is the deepest lake in Louisiana. It was a 10-foot (3 m) deep freshwater body, popular with sportsmen, until an unusual man-made disaster on November 20, 1980 changed its structure and the surrounding land.[1][2]   Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

And then to finish the dream date, you and me would go to like a movie or something. Probably, I mean, top of my head, the rundown starring Duane the Rock Johnson. For clarity, sake, I just said, how's it going, Eli? Mm-hmm. I mean, what could it hurt, right? That's what I'm saying, exactly. Hey, hey guys, what you doing? The podcast is just about to get its thousandth share.

Thousandth? Share? Yeah, I mean, I know we joke about how this show is kind of small in audience, but once time it hits share, I gotta say that we are gonna... Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Damn it What what's the matter you idiots broke through to being a much much larger podcast wait? What do you mean just look at the numbers man look at the download number? 84 million downloads in episode. How is that even possible? Nobody knows when your numbers get big They get insanely big all of a sudden now. We only just have a couple of moments guys I'm sorry. I don't mean interrupt But I just got a notification

Buzzfeed just wrote an article called will citation needed disappoint with their third season What? Do even have seasons we do now yeah, that's a thing wait wait. I mean do we make more money? No, we just do high pepper challenges on corporate YouTube channels More money? No! We just do high-pepper challenges on corporate YouTube channels. That sounds good. Guys, sorry. Four of our employees are suing Tom for sexual harassment. Wait, what? We don't even have employees.

Apparently we do, and Tom apparently sexually harassed all of them. It's what happens when a certain amount of people listen to your podcasts. It's just what happens. There's gotta be some way to reverse this, though, can't- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait to reverse this though. Can't wait wait wait we can we can change what the show's about We can switch networks or make ourselves impossible to find maybe put all our episodes behind a paywall or something That's gonna what it's not gonna work Guys this is a bit too much for me. I'm pretty sure that I'm gonna have to go ahead and he don't do it and quit the show He- he- he don't do it! And quit the show.

Oh my god, what happened? What is that? He- he's- everyone knows when you quit a successful podcast, you become a racist YouTuber with a channel based on your fragile masculinity. Sorry, Cesar, couldn't hear you, uh, over all the women being black. I'm running for a run. I'm getting a fight right now. I'm getting a fight. I'm getting a citation. I heard a fight. I'm getting die! I'm gonna die right now!

I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now!

I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now!

I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! I'm gonna die right now! Like, what the fuck? My wedding ring is back. What happened? I had so much merch. I had stickers. The only way to kill a popular podcast, go full cereal. Wow. How many people listen to our show now?

Counting us, Eli, that'd be four. Damn it, how is that even possible, four? I'm just not a fan of all the laughing. Hello and welcome to SITATION Needed! Sorry, I got the popular podcast thing. There you go. The podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm Eli, and I'll be draining this swamp, but I'll need some drill holes.

First up, two men who give a whole new meaning to salt mount, heath and top. So you know who's really funny and writes his hosting stuff on time? Josh, yeah. Nobody knows when we write our stuff. So you see him unprepared. Two points for Eli. Dancer. Yeah, I'm not even sure what that intro means, but yeah, with the amount of beef jerky in my diet, I am pretty well preserved. And also joining us tonight, two men who remember when that oil was dinosaur, Stan, Noah and Cecil.

Now, our version back in my day of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, way scarier, way scarier. Yeah, and you kids have no idea what fresh squeezed dinos taste like either. the deep water horizon disaster way scarier way scarier. Yeah, and you kids have no idea what fresh squeeze dino tastes like either. Because 89 says a gallon back then too. Yeah. You just have to squeeze it under layers and layers of sudden. It takes a long time.

Now, before we begin tonight, we'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons. Without you patrons, we'd have to get real jobs. And three of us can't do those anymore. If you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around to the end of the show. And with that, Eloy, tell us, Tom, what person-place-thing concept phenomenon or event will we be talking about today? Today we'll be talking about Lake Penguin news. Jesus Christ.

He is getting near your. Glad you said it first. And you there. Actually read the article. Are you ready to deliver a semi-coherent narrative that isn't largely based on your misremembering an episode of this American life? I am.

Eli. So tell us what is Lake Pennier? Lake Pennier is an 1100 acre lake in Southern Louisiana just north of the Boots Arch. And did something interesting happen there or good, but good to explain it. We're going to have to travel back to the end of the Triassic period with the Atlantic Ocean first started to rip the Americas away from Pangea. We're gonna have to travel back to the end of the Triassic period with the Atlantic Ocean first turn into the Americas away from Pangea. That's right. Get excited. This week I brought some geology old rocks.

Ooh, once just once Noah. I want you to tell a story that doesn't involve your origin story. You're like a Spider-Man movie. Hey, apropos of nothing Noah, what's a salt dome? It's interesting that you should ask. Eli, I was about to explain that, but you beat me to it. Okay, so salt domes are columns of salt pushing up from deep in the earth's crust through several strata of rock. They're formed along ocean deltas where large amounts of seawater get cut off

from the ocean evaporate and then leave behind their salts. All right, Twitter told me this is from liberal tears. Fake news man. Fake news. Fake news. So anyway, so this happens over and over again, another storm surge pushes more salt water into the sea and evaporates at least behind its salt.

This happens for centuries and centuries, you end up with massive buildups of salt that get buried over by other geological processes. But since the salt is less dense than the sediment over top of it, it rises over time to form a salt dome. And yes, it's more complicated than I'm making a sound over simplifying when I say it's because of density. But Tom's already rolling his eyes at me. We're not even on camera and I can hear them. Let's name some other minerals in their density.

So all together. Everybody when I kill myself just letting you know, you're all coming with me. Two points, like 2.6 for courts, graphites like two, two. All right. That's a little bit less. How big are we talking when it comes to these salt mounds? Well, they can be massive. Okay. So the diameter is usually at least a kilometer. And sometimes it's 10 times that. And according to one of the Wiki articles I used for this essay, some salt domes are quote as much as 35,000 feet below the surface and as largest Mount Everest. End quote. Okay.

Yeah. Can you convert that into nachos servings for me, please? Need a one-time nachos serving. That's right. Four point three tricked out fuckbots worthtime nachos. That's right. Yeah. 4.3 tricked out fuckbots worth of nachos. All right. So the ideal place for salt dome formation would be a large delta with turbulent weather patterns where two tectonic plates meet, right?

So the weather pushes up the salt, the delta isolates it and subduction buries the large salt deposits for later use. For example, the southern edge of Louisiana just north of the boots arch. Okay. So basically the geological equivalent of the spot where my leg fat meets my other leg fat. The southern edge of Louisiana, the sweaty ass crack of America. That's a boi. I didn't know. Yeah. All right, Noah, I find this fascinating. But, you know, we're losing Tom fast. So any chance you can turn either of these things into money or flexible women, either of those will neither of those available by the way in Louisiana.

Yeah, no, unfortunately. But needless to say, those salt domes do have economic value, not the least of which is that they're made a salt. We use that stuff. The tops of salt domes also tend to be sulfur rich. You just said rich and I'm still bored. I don't even know how that's possible. How's that possible? I find new boundaries every week and I cross them.

All right, so but beyond mining, salt and sulfur, there's also another lucrative aspect to salt domes. They're impermeable. So, while they're pushing their way through the various substratives, they can balloon out and create a watertight airtight reservoir that traps oil and natural gas. So, no wonder then that when the first salt dome was ever discovered, it was turned up in 1890 by oil prospect. It must have been a great day for one guy just twerking in everyone's face.

It was a giant salt balloon full of oil suckers. When it rains at point, yeah, there you go. No, it's important to note here that salt domes almost never reach the surface, otherwise we'd have discovered him a lot earlier, but they do leave a telltale bulge in the earth's surface. So trashy women from Jersey are used to find them? I'm sorry. It's rumored that that is true. I couldn't find confirmation though.

I looked into it. No, but it didn't take long for oil's prospectors to start looking for these specifically when it came time to find a place to drill, right? And the best part of that is that, you know, if you find a salt dome, even if you can't produce an oil well out of it, the salt is still profitable.

You miss out on the oil, but at least you can mine some salt out of it, right? Yeah, and if you put it all in a shaker with a little bit of lemon juice, like a spritz, you have this amazing vinaigrette. And it's, you see, Tom, it's not an episode about a lake, it's an episode about earths, tater tots full of money. Keep going Noah.

Keep going. I got it. Thanks for the help you like. All right. So the key takeaway here is that the mining of salt domes and the drilling of oil often goes hand in hand, right? So the mining or leaving giant hollow spots in underground columns of earth and the oil drilling or poking really deep holes in the earth often happens in essentially

the same place. You can see how maybe this is going to cause an issue in a story about a lake. Okay. Well, I'm picturing redneck kids getting sucked out of a lake through a series of tubes and into an oildark. And then going back like it's action fucking part. Yeah, all I know at this point is that so far we haven't told a story at all about a lake and I have an unmistakable craving for new coke right about it. And I've given you a new smile then. Okay. Also one other note worthy connection between the oil industry and salt, though mining, when they tap out a salt mine or even just like as much as they're going to, they're

left with a giant empty space surrounded by impermeable walls of salt comes in handy. If you have a bunch of toxic liquid or gaseous waste products that you want to steep store deep under the earth where they're not going to get into your drinking water. I drink your milkshake. Nope. No. Never mind. No, to be fair, by the way, that won't come into play in this story, but I figured it should probably be pointed out that we have Mount Everest sized underground reservoirs of toxic liquids buried below our Gulf Coast with nothing between them and our drinking water, but table salt and not having a hurricane right now. I feel like I shouldn't be the only person on the call burdened with that now.

Really? Cause I just read the fifth risk and I'm pretty sure Donald Trump just fired you from the EPA. So anyway, as you can imagine, sometimes these mind salt domes cause problems, especially when you consider how much the up to 35,000 feet of rock between them and the surface of the earth ways. So no, what are we talking here at chunk breaks off? They ruined some soups.

What's going on? What happened? Well, on occasion, they collapse like the Napoleonville dome beneath assumption paris Louisiana, which is now known by the name the Bayou corn sinkhole or when filtered through the alarmist media, the 35 acres sinkhole that's devouring Louisiana. Okay. I believe it's time to just embrace it and let New Orleans fall into a giant waterproof salt bubble like for safety, for genuine safety, that's so much better. On the license plates down there, they should just have like the saying Louisiana, even the

state is trying to leave the state. Yeah, I'm, are we sure this hasn't happened already? Cause like I've been to New Orleans and I'm pretty sure if the word collapse means anything at all. That's it. Oh, it's an honestly the bio corn sinkhole story is worth a quick diversion. A diversion, a diversion. Wouldn't that imply somehow that we've begun this story of this lady already?

We have to be a diversion. The story of the main topic wasn't long enough to fill the episode. Let's talk about sex spots for a minute. All right, so the Napoleonville dome was an abandoned salt mine with 53 different caverns, which was operated by a company called Texas Brian. Like I said, these mines are pretty useful for storage. So one of the caverns was rented out to oxidant chemical for gas and oil storage. All right. What's it going to take for me to put your lube in my salt cavern? He's gone. He's gone. I am not hitting my quota this morning. My sales pitch is weird. I can't get

my sales pitch is weird. Salt cavern. I'm just picturing now like one of those storage wars guys like beating on old salt terms like what will Barry find when he opens his salt home? Will it be the key to his everlasting fortune or yet another amphitheater full of poison? Okay, Noah, I get it. Okay, full of oil. What could go wrong? Seriously, Noah, what went wrong? Tell us what one's just, what's up? Well, yeah, I had citation needed, something went wrong. So, okay, so starting in June of 2012,

residents in the area started noticing some weird activity from Earth. Well, at a low level earthquakes, the lakes are bubbling up, there's the smell of gas all over the place. 40 years of darkness, volcanoes, the dead rising from graves, human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living and cats, living and cats living in the gas area. Exactly. plays 40 years of darkness, volcanoes, the dead rising from grades, human sacrifice, dogs

and cats, let me get that. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, the kind of shit that just screams citation needed episode coming. So after insisting it couldn't be related to their underground toxic sludge, self storage facility, Texas Brian eventually agreed that they would figure out what was going on. So they drilled a relief well and learned that the outer wall of the salt dome had collapsed.

Dave, Dave, Dave, can you come in here? Did you sell a cavern to the guy with the alien blood? Did you say, did you say what's it gonna take to put your blood in my salt cavern? Because he's doing it. And he probably said yes. Did you do that. And he probably said, yes, that's what you did. Right. Okay.

So this abandoned mine was about a mile below the earth. So that meant that the mile or so a sediment above the mine could now flow into that big empty space freely. But it also meant that the oil and gas stored in the caverns could escape to the surface hence all the bubbling lakes and shit. Yeah. And they could also tell because all the alligators down there were all puffed up and airborne like the Macy's Thanksgiving day play.

Yeah. Like, just hotline by. This does seem like rather the obvious conclusion, right? I mean, like we haven't solved the, what if it leaks problem when it comes to building better tits yet? Like I'm not going to be like, we've got this problem licked on a grander scale. And we don't. Yeah. So on August 3rd, the disaster reach, whatever critical level was required for the earth to just open up and start swallowing

shit. That day, the state started ordering evacuations. And as near as I can tell, they're still ordering evacuations six years later. Okay. When you buy a house in Louisiana, the deed isn't evacuation order. You idiot's live next to the hurricane spawn point from Golden Eye. Fuck. All right. So now when this single first appeared, by the way, it was already massive about two and

a half acres worth a natural, Sarlaks swallowing up trees and houses and shit. And since then, it's expanded to 37 acres with a maximum depth of at least 750 feet. That's like 230 meters. You said it took six years? I guess that, I mean, that makes sense. It's about the right length of time for government intervention in Louisiana. So that's where it takes big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big big, big, big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big

big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big team sinkhole. I don't know about you guys. Yeah. All right. So now according to the most recent stories I could find on this thing, the sinkhole does seem to be stabilizing, but it is still growing. How was that stabilizing? It's just the rate of growth is going down. That's what it means. So it wouldn't be stable. That would still be changing. All right. So Texas Brian has had to buy out dozens of homes and they burned off more than 25 million

cubic feet of gas. That was their measure of cubic feet in an ongoing effort to deplete the escaping reserves. And as much as this seems like one of those inevitable consequences of keeping your gas in an abandoned salt mine, according to a state district judges ruling at the beginning of this year, the company's running the mine had been ignoring internal warnings about poor planning and dangerous engineering since at least 1976 in an effort to make this disaster happen. Oh, man, you can't trust oil companies. Who can you trust?

Yeah, it talks about his removal services. All right, come on. I do not take this the wrong way because I love a story about the earth swallowing up the South as much as the next person. But the episode title has a lake in it. Is this is there a lake? I'm getting there. Okay. Well, I guess we'll give Noah some time to plot the shortest course to the point and we'll give you some apropos of nothing. Hi, I'm Eli Bosnick. You know, we sure did have a lot of fun today at the beginning of the show. I had a motorcycle. What happened?

But you should know. It's okay to let us become a world famous podcast. That's right, Tom. Because despite what our little top of the show sketch might tell you, if you help us get more money and fame, we're just going to bring you more funny. So please, feel free to like, share our show. Tell your friends about it.

And best of all, donate at patreon.com slash citation pocket. Because Cecil Heath and Noah would never sexually harass our employees. Don't you mean all of us? I know what I said. And we're back. When we last left off Noah was talking about salt and sinkholes. And that was all going to lead up to a lake. So Noah, why, why is this episode named after a lake? Okay.

All right. So let me come clean here. A listener recommended Lake Pinyura as a subject. So I read through the root cappeti article and I fucking loved love that but it was way too short to do a full episode about and I thought, well, maybe we could do a short, but then I started looking into it. I started learning all that cool shit about salt domes and eventually it occurred to me that if I didn't string it into a full episode, I would know about salt domes for no fucking reason. Yeah. Great. And now the seven listeners who haven't switched back to the dollop also

know about salt domes for no fucking reason. No, but you just set up for this episode. They know about it for follow up question. Are you going to talk about all the things you learned about for no fucking reason on this episode? Because the show aims for 30 minutes. I know. I'm for a time for reasons different essays. I'm eventually going to do. Okay. So our actual story begins early on a November morning in 1980 on an unremarkable lake in Louisiana, like all the lakes in Louisiana. And in this one, Mexico is probing for oil.

Now, this lake is sizable, but its shallow was all hell. I believe at the time the deepest point was 11 feet, spoiler alert. By the end of this story, it's gonna be way deeper. Yeah, and by the end, when this is all over, the lake will have smoked the bowl and read Being in Time by Hightager and had like, really weird conversation with his friends. It's actually gonna be more like being

a nothingness by Sarsug. I was so sure that was gonna be a vagina joke. I'm so proud of you Cecil. Reminds me of joke. I'm so proud of you Cecil Reminds me of the philosophy I'm red Kindled Cam Miranda You know what someone had a joke right say something about Proust Too slow gay liar gay

Now as I said before oil exploration and salt mining often happen real close by but in a perfect world They don't happen in the exact same place This would not be the case in this particular instance apparently the folks operating the oil rig were misinterpreting the coordinates Or as the wiki puts it, quote, the rig was positioned as if the coordinates were in the universal transverse mercator coordinate system. When in actuality, they were in transverse mercator projection. End quote, put it dumbasses. I mean, hey stupid question, you guys are using the universal system, right? You're too slow, too slow. I'm not going to pretend I know what that means or any of the words involved. But I do feel like if you're running an oil rig, so much it know like exactly where that is supposed

to go because drilling in the wrong hole has never worked well for any if only you had been there on that cold morning in 1980. So yeah, that's my excuse. It was a cold morning. So I got conceived. All right. So the end result of the misinterpretation of the people's front of coordinates with the coordinated people's front was The spot figure the spot they were drilling on was directly Above a shaft in the diamond crystal salt company salt mine Which wasn't to band and like that last one we talked about folks were still mine and for salt there like That day, okay, now they're drilling right on the shaft. That's

varsity. That is some varsity. All right. So there's 12 men on the drilling rig at the time that they punched through. It took them and figured out anything was wrong because the first drilling just got way easier, but then the drill got stuck and it wouldn't reverse which apparently is unusual because they're only a thousand feet down and that's not where you get to the sticky stuff, I guess yeah, and then they just pull the drill bit back up and they're all pissed that they didn't get the Ricky and Morty Blosh they wanted Just a kid and then it just dropped the fucking thing Just a kid with an inner tube stuck to the drill

was the kid with an inner tube stuck to the drill. Yeah. Yeah. That action park action park South all that sticky shit. That's just the price to do a business drilling there sometimes. I mean, it's a complain. It's got a power through and finish the job. There you go. All right. So while they're trying to figure out what's going on, they reportedly heard a series of loud pops right before the rig tilted, which is when they got the fuck out of there. They cut the barges loose. They hauled ass the 300 meters or so to the shore. And they make it safely to shore. And they look back at this $5 million drilling platform,

just kind of wobbling around in the water. When all of a sudden it turns over and disappears In a lake that's only 11 feet deep They look over on the other side of the shore and they just see a ground hog slow dance into Kenny log That's a reference to a movie about a mentally handicapped gentleman who plays golf. It was funny at the time. The guy standing there just like, okay, bad news. We struck hell. Looks like that was probably hell.

Good news probably lots of oil. Yeah, it's in the hole. So, all right. So then with this dozen oil workers looking on, the water in the lake starts to swirl around slowly at first, but then picking up speed and turning into a whirlpool more than a quarter mile in diameter centered exactly on their drill site Coincidence? No, they were only using a 15 inch drill bit, only bragging. They were only humble bra, whatever. Yeah, so, but first when they punched through,

there was only a 14 inch hole, but once the water started pouring in, the salt wall that it pierced started to dissolve, so the hole was expanding by the seconds. And it's also marks the first time in history, anyone in Louisiana flushed so It's like all 12 guys from that oil rig walk away in 12 different directions All right, so meanwhile cut to the 55 people that were 1500 feet underground, still mining salt.

All right. So the first to notice something, something something is an electrician who's like, hey, what's that noise that sound like millions of gallons of water flushed into the mine? I'm working, you know what? I'm going to sound the alarm. So everybody starts hauling ass to the elevator, or at least everybody who was close enough to hear the alarm. Apparently, they have non-alarm hearing spots

way deep down in the mind. Seems like a design tool. Yeah, exactly. But luckily, somebody was able to drive around in a gas powered vehicle to tell them about it. But that driver guy has an office that can't hear the alarm. So they had to have a guy walk down to his office

with a memo that says alarm. Yeah. He's a people person. It's annoying. Okay, so I think I know the answer. What happened next? Yeah, so luckily for the miners, there was a lot of mind for this lake to drain into because even though they had to take a slow ass elevator 1300 feet up, they could only carry eight people at a time

All 55 of them did make it to safety without any injury The elevator just sits there for a minute opens back up. Holy shit. I thought you pressed the button We're going we're going you press it now you press it Every time it starts to close the guy in the outside every time it starts to close, the guy in the outside breath. I was fucking with you that time. You're gonna kill us all, Bill. You know, right? Leonidas kick.

No. All right. So meanwhile, back on Earth's surface, the once picturesque lake is draining somewhere between bathtub and black hole. It swells up another drilling platform, as well as a barge, a loading dock, a big chunk of the island in the middle of the lake, another barge, 65 acres of the shoreline, trucks, trees, and a parking lot. In fact, the whirlpool was so powerful it reversed the flow of the nearby Delcom Canal, which in turn

sucked in another nine barges. Wow. It's too bad this whole thing wasn't in Australia. They would have created nine barges. That's the last one. The barges wound up. Yeah. It's once they went through.

Oh, this thing is like the Steve Martin of Lake Disasters. It's just like, I'm just going to suck up this barge. Just this barge. And this island, this isge just this barge and this I'm just this part of this island and that's all I'm gonna suck up and this barge in these 65 acres So as you can imagine this was a pretty amazing site to behold

First of all when the normally outflowing canal switched to an inland, it created a waterfall larger than any in the state, which lasted for several days. Also, the air that got trapped in the mine as the water rushed in eventually was released in geysers more than 400 feet high. This is basically a land mass equivalent of getting food boys and again, everything squirted scored not every hole. It's just a few days of the canal flowing into the lake. It turned from an 11 foot freshwater lake to a 1300 foot deep saltwater lake. Also, I'd have loved to see this one happening, but once the water pressure equalized in the

lake, nine of the 11 sunken barges just pop back up Big line of kids on top of them just one still alive I'm just picturing some guy getting yelled at by the side of the lake and he's like and now we lost all those barges, blue. You can go. All right. Now, no, I've got to say this is starting to sound a lot more like our show. So what's the body count? What are we talking here? Hundreds, thousands, hundred thousand.

Amazingly nobody was killed or as near as I can tell, even seriously injured during the accident or I should say at can tell, even seriously injured during the accident or I should say at least no, no humans were. Obviously a lot of fish lost their lives that day, a lot of seaweed. And the Wikipedia article also says that three dogs were reported killed. Fuck that. I saw as she was people. He's done it. Yeah. And I don't know what the dogs were doing, but there's no citation on it. And obviously the entire ecosystem of the lake got fucked in the deal.

The once freshwater lake was now filled with saltwater, not because of the salt mine below it, mind you, but because the canal that's supposed to flow out of it was brackish. So virtually nothing that lived in or around the old lake could survive there anymore. You guys picture in some deer going over to their favorite drinking lake and he's just like, I'm telling you it tastes weird Dave, Dave come here and taste this. It's weird, right? It's weird.

No, no, I can't escape the feeling that this is, this whole thing just is like a metaphor for the environment. It's like a metaphor for the environment. Yes. The happening to Marke Mark fights a salt dome. It's a shot of a salt dome. All right, so eventually, Texaco and the drilling contractor paid $32 million to Diamond

Crystal for the loss of their salt mine and another $12.8 million to a nearby plant nursery that housed the most valuable collection of plants in the whole of human history. Well, I for one, I'm glad that one giant corporation paid the other giant corporation. I find that comfortable. Yeah. That's good. All right. So enough with the bad news.

Noah, is there any, you know, good news to the time of Lake turned into a saltwater death. That's a name of my battle band, by the way. Saltwater death. We are saltwater death. We are saltwater death. We are saltwater death. We are saltwater death.

We are saltwater death. We are saltwater death. We are saltwater death. We are saltwater death. We are saltwater death. We are saltwater death. We are saltwater death. We are saltwater death. We are saltwater death. Oh, all right. So in answer to your question, Eli theorist always a silver lining, even though a lake was accidentally drained, drained into it, the abandoned mine was not a complete loss. According to the aftermath heading on this article on Wikipedia, quote, since 1994, AGL resources has been using Lake Pignure's underlying salt dome as a storage and hub facility

for pressurized natural gas and coal. So, you know, go capitalism. Oh, uh, hey, guys, so that dome that broke when we stored oil in it, that it probably hold gas, right? Let's try gas. Next and a nuclear missile silo because that's also. We need a new one. It's probably worth noting by the way that immediately after the quote, he just read it says quote, there was concern from local residents in 2009 over the safety of storing

the gas under the lake and nearby drilling operations and quote, and then the entire article just ends right there. And scene of Wikipedia. This may be eventually a two-parter episode. And if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be? When our species dies, it will be because we begged for it. Yeah. Two, you know, two bags.

Okay. Are you ready to see how deep our knowledge goes? I'm always hesitant to answer yes to any of your how deep questions, but yes, in this instance, yes, I wisdom. All right, Noah. This was such a life-changing event that the local high school used it as an inspiration for their prom theme. What was the theme called?

Jesus. Hey, saline on the ocean blue. Be, drill you be mine. See, hold on to today. Or D, old laying brine. You almost got me there. See, so I was just about to say, eh, but then I remember this is Louisiana. Nobody makes it all the way to high school down there.

Trick question. It's a trick question. Damn it. All right, Noah, which of the following should be the title of the movie about Lake Penaer? A, happening to assault and battery. Oh, a salt crushing at the salt. A salt crushing at the salt battery. Was that not kosher? I thought that was pretty good. You rock. NACL.

What? Was it, so NACL is the chemicals? Damn it. B. Was was it B there will be flood or see the Gulf of Mexico. A documentary called the Gulf of Mexico. All right, if I say a there's a greater chance we get to hear Eli's marquee mark impressions. So I'm going to say.

Are you a fucking round lump of earth bro Oh you better hope this whole doesn't go through to China because I will beat up everybody Then I'll be in a movie about a zoo and we'll all just forget about the time that I Exclusively played a homicidal maniac and a guy with a big dick like all of a sudden I'm just in kids movies. That was incorrect as it turned out. That's correct. It was be the was correct.

All right. No, obviously salt, ohms just incredibly useful geological formations that lend themselves naturally to a comedy podcast. So, you order some other topics. No, it might be looking at for next time, you know, other interesting. Hey, the eruption of Krakatoa. Be good. Set it this one.

Be the door to hell in Turkmenistan. Beautiful pictures. Seed Giants Causeway in Ireland. Amazing. D, nope, we got a lake that was shallow and then later wasn't. That was our secret answer. E Tom loved this essay and it's actually really excited to go tell all his friends about the cool most stuff that you learned about salt domes tonight.

Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. Was that Tom the formula demands they turn out to be correct on this one? How about that? Who the fuck? Who did that? We're all picturing Tom on a golf course, right? And being like, hey, Bill, did you know that there's a big round salt under us?

Never mind. Never mind. I don't know. Well, it looks like nobody bested you this week. No, so you win. You take over his host next week and you get to choose who has to do next week's essay. Oh who am I most Agree with this week? Tom gets to do something super interesting like the history of toilets or something.

All right, well for Cecil Noah Tom and Heath I'm Eli Bosnick, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then Tom will be an expert on the history of toilets. Between now and then, you can listen to Tom and Cecil get salty over a cognitive dissonance, and you can take a big drink of our shows over at God Awful Movies, The Skating Atheist, and The Skeptocrat to Induce Fomiting. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash Citation pod or leave us a five star review everywhere you can and if you'd like to get in touch with us Don't check out past episodes connect with us on social media or check the show notes

Be sure to check out citation pod dot com and remember if you didn't vote You you maybe you were busy And remember, if you didn't vote, fuck you. Fuck you. Maybe you were busy. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Bring the Heath where I pour hot sauce on titties and titties on hot sauce Hey guys what nothing nothing nothing cool