Louisiana Bills Texas Brine $3.5M for Sinkhole

The state of Louisiana sent a $3.5 million bill to the Texas company it blames for a massive sinkhole that has swallowed more than five acres of land in Assumption Parish and contaminated an aquifer.

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell demanded payment from Texas Brine Co. LLC, saying it’s the tally so far of state response efforts to the sinkhole from six different agencies. The letter also names Occidental Chemical Co., from whom Texas Brine leased the site.

The state’s data shows the sinkhole is linked to the collapse of a side wall of an underground salt cavern that Houston-based Texas Brine operated.

The company extracted brine and piped it to nearby petrochemical facilities. It has acknowledged a relationship between the sinkhole and the breached cavern, but suggested geologic tremors in the area may have caused the cavern breach.