Pre-historic caverns in Carlsbad may have put the small city on the map, but locals are concerned a man-made cavern might take the city off it.
Salt mining has left a cavity beneath a main intersection on the south side of town that threatens to collapse any day, said George Veni, member of a city committee working on the issue.
“What we have right now is a cavity down below. Once it collapses, it will be a sinkhole,” he said. “Any building within this sinkhole will be destroyed, but in terms of the larger impact this will have, we’re looking at potential disruption of one or two of the highways within town, potential disruption of the railroad tracks and potential disruption of an irrigation canal that provides the water for agriculture.”
The existence of the salt brine well was not unknown to residents, but the recent collapse of two similar mines outside of town has raised concern, Veni said.
“We realized that the brine well in Carlsbad was very similar in very many ways to the two that collapsed,” he said. “Their age, depth and geology were alike and we
realized that there may be a problem here.”
The salt mining technique injects water into underground rocks in order to dissolve the salt layer, trapping the oil and reaching the brine held within the rocks, UNM Geology Professor Wolfgang Elston said.
“A sinkhole occurs when the ground subsides because something is gone from underneath it,” Elston said. “Unless some fluid moves in to take its place, something has to give.”
UNM student Janae Owen is from Carlsbad and said she is concerned for her hometown’s well-being.
“It’s a complete shock,” she said. “Carlsbad is a small town so any damage, even small, will affect the whole town.”
Owen said her best friend lives within the range of the possible sinkhole and in event of a collapse her house would be damaged.
“It will be really weird going back if it collapses,” she said. “I’m always at her house and it will be ridiculous for it to just not be there anymore.”
Veni said the potential sinkhole is a serious situation, but it has been blown out of proportion by the media. Stories about the sinkhole have appeared in the LA Times, Detroit Times and the Chicago Tribune.
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“People seem to have this idea that the whole city is going to collapse, and it will be a giant hole in the ground, which is not going to happen,” he said. “The affected area is relatively small. You have the area where it occurs and the area around it where the ground will sort of slump towards the sinkhole and some damage to the road, infrastructures and buildings.”
Precautionary measures have been taken to ensure the affected residents’ safety and convenience, Veni said.
“The county is doing everything we can to ensure public safety,” he said. “We have an emergency response team, we’ve got a device to monitor any changes and means of notifying affected people if a collapse should start to occur.”
Meanwhile, Veni said his committee is working on collecting information to present to the public.
“The best thing to do is to review the options to make decisions about what’s the best way to proceed,” he said. “We are looking at the possibilities and we will present them to the city when we are finished collecting them. Nothing is certain at this point. We are looking at all the options and we are going to present them to the city for their consideration.”
