Rain-Swollen Lake Bursts Bank and Disappears

Nature doesn’t mess around. One look at this photo makes it clear how much power the forces of nature really hold, and how helpless we can be to their destruction. The photo shows two employees of Tommy Bartlett’s Water Show trying to clean debris and dead fish out of the empty bed of Lake Delton in Wisconsin, which was once a picturesque 267-acre vacation destination.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Weekend rains of biblical proportions dumped so much water into Lake Delton that it literally burst its banks.

Tens of thousands of gallons of lake water barreled through the woods, taking with it a roadway, several houses, boats, fish and lake bed. It emptied into the nearby Wisconsin River and was gone in hours.

On Tuesday morning, some 24 hours after the catastrophe, the massive lake is nearly drained. The lake is a muddy moonscape of cracked earth. Fish bake in the sun, flopping until their deaths. Mounds of dead fish are piled high. The shoreline is jagged and cracked. Boats hang in the air suspended by what is left of the docks. In parts, the little water that is left meanders like a silent brook. The roadway and earth that held the river back is now a grand canyon.

Lake Delton was formerly a lively scene of water skiing, fishing, and other recreation. State officials have vowed to refill the lake as soon as possible, but residents are afraid the lake will never be the same again. And it may not – the lake was artificially created by damming Dell Creek. Sounds like nature took things into its own hands and turned the man-made lake back into a creek, as it was originally.

Link [Chicago Tribune]
Photo credit: Chicago Tribune/ E. Jason Wambsgans

Oil Drilling, Not Earthquake, Caused Deadly Java Mud Volcano

Two years ago, a mud volcano in East Java, Indonesia caused millions of dollars worth of damage and displaced more than 30,000 people. That mud volcano – which is still spewing huge volumes of mud today – has found to have been caused by oil drilling, rather than an earthquake as was originally thought. The video below shows the mud flow, which reaches volumes of 100,000 cubic meters per day – enough to fill 53 Olympic-size swimming pools.

From the Environmental News Network:

Graduate student Maria Brumm and Prof Michael Manga of University of California, Berkeley undertook a systematic study to test the claims that the eruption was caused by this earthquake. They found that none of the ways earthquakes trigger eruptions could have played a role at Lusi.

Prof Michael Manga, of University of California, Berkeley, said: “We have known for hundreds of years that earthquakes can trigger eruptions. In this case, the earthquake was simply too small and too far away.”

The new report concludes the effect of the earthquake was minimal because the change in pressure underground due to the earthquake would have been tiny. Instead, scientists are “99 per cent” certain drilling operations were to blame.

Prof Davies, of Durham University’s Centre for Research into Earth Energy Systems (CeREES) explained: “We show that the day before the mud volcano started there was a huge ”˜kick’ in the well, which is an influx of fluid and gas into the wellbore. We show that after the kick the pressure in the well went beyond a critical level.”

Naturally, the oil company denied that their drilling was responsible for the environmental disaster.

The Java mud volcano is the largest in the world, and is beginning to show signs of potentially catastrophic collapse which could sag the vent area by up to 150 meters in the next decade. Mud volcanoes usually occur naturally, caused by geo-excreted liquids and gases.

Link [ENN] + [YouTube] + [Wikipedia]

Leadville, Colorado Fears Billion Gallon Flood of Cancer and Pain

Leadville, Colorado is a scary place to live in these days. It’s a high altitude town- the highest incorporated in the U.S. at over 10,000 feet- contaminated by decades of mining the slopes above and around. It was at one time the largest silver mine in the world and over the decades has been host to soldiers from the nearby Army base, famous writers and celebrities, and even gunslinger Doc Holiday.

Today it’s filled with a people fearful of the billion gallons of polluted water plugged up in a tunnel overlooking town that’s threatening to pop. If it blows the entire town will be awash in a watery stew of deadly chemicals, lead, mercury, and other heavy metals. Leadville’s 2,700 residents could find themselves knee deep in cancer and death.

Groovy Green says not to worry though, officials are all over this one:

Peter Soeth, a spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation, which acquired the drainage tunnel in 1959, said there was no immediate threat to Leadville’s 2,700 residents.

Officials point out that a speaker system to broadcast evacuation notices has already been installed near a mobile home park that has 300 residents near the tunnel’s portal.

I’d feel so safe if I knew that and lived in Leadville. A speaker system. They have a speaker system. Great F.S.M.

Link [MSNBC] via Groovy Green