BATON ROUGE — Lake Peigneur is not polluted, according to the state Department of Environmental Quality, but a spokesman says the mystery of the bubbling that occurs from time to time is no closer to being solved.

Also, a state geologist at Louisiana State University is baffled by the on-again-off-again bubbling.

“I have not heard of this ever happening,” Chacko John, director and state geologist at LSU, said Wednesday.

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DEQ Regional Manager Robert Freeman said the water samples taken by the DEQ from Lake Peigneur Jan. 12 show the surface water is not contaminated.

Inspectors from the department went to the lake, located at the Iberia Parish-Vermilion Parish line north of Delcambre, after nearby residents complained water along the surface was bubbling.

The department arrived after the bubbling stopped but managed to get samples from the frothy area that forms subsequent to the bubbling, which, according to eyewitness accounts, can leap a foot or more into the air.

DEQ staff analyzed the water for more than 30 components, such as benzene, volatile organic compounds and other gasoline-related compounds.

“We sampled the lake’s water, because the people who called us were concerned about the quality of the lake’s surface water after that latest bubbling incident,” Freeman said. “We sampled the water for a variety of components, and all samples came out ‘non-detect.’ We’re no closer to solving the bubble mystery, but we now know the surface water of the lake is not contaminated.”

Perhaps some samples should be taken from the lake’s bottom, “but that’s just a wild guess,” said John, who also spoke to DEQ Wednesday.

“If there is gas they should have picked it up on analysis,” the geologist said. “I told them (DEQ) to try to get someone to take a sample from the bottom. That may be something to look into, to see if there’s some concentration of organics, but that’s all just a wild guess.”

Some lake residents suspect the problem comes from AGL Resources’ salt-dome caverns, which are storing natural gas. AGL denies it and also has tested the froth. The company found diesel remnants, but nothing appreciable that indicates the bubbling emanates from its two caverns under the lake’s surface.

Whatever the case, DEQ’s and AGL Resources’ tests results only further gnaw at lake-area resident Nara Crowley, one of several bothered by the state’s efforts so far to find the source of the problem.

The bubbling has occurred more than a half-dozen times since last year and no one really knows what it is or what’s causing it, Crowley noted. The bubbling forms, then lays out a line of froth for hundreds of feet. Then it disappears. DEQ said it has done its part up to now.

“Our job,” DEQ’s Rodney Mallett said Wednesday, “is to regulate and handle pollution-type situations. We’ve gone out there with air monitors and have taken samples from the surface. The lake is not polluted. The surface is OK. What does that leave?”

Crowley said someone needs to take charge, maybe dive to the lake’s muddy bottom to find out some geological information or cause — or something that shows some initiative. She said she wonders why the state Department of Natural Resources is not taking a more serious role in researching the bubbling.

“What really blows my mind is, rather than consider what’s going on at the lake, nobody seems to care,” said Crowley. “Everybody’s just running away. Up to now, I’ve been very good. If the state doesn’t do something, the curtains are going to come down. We’re trying to avoid what happened in Napoleonville, where natural gas got into drinking water.”

DNR spokeswoman Phyllis Darensbourg answered via e-mail Wednesday that she would need more time to answer questions regarding DNR’s future role in the matter.

Another resident is apparently taking a calmer approach, though frustration is evident with Mike Richard Jr., too.

“The tests they (DEQ) ran was a background sample. Now they have to get samples while it’s bubbling,” said Richard, who lives on the northeast side of the lake and can see AGL’s wellheads, but not the bubbling, from his home. “It puts a damper on things when you can’t get out there and get samples while it’s bubbling. Usually the actual bubbling doesn’t last but for an hour or so, if you catch it. Usually what you see is the foam. So, nobody really knows — still. There’s a lot of possibilities of what it could be. There’s a lot of speculation, but it’s hard to pin anything down.”

AGL’s Keith Poston said “there was weathered diesel in the water we tested that could have come from” chemicals leaking from sunken trucks and barges from the Texaco accident at the lake in the 1980s.

“It could be completely unrelated. We just don’t know,” Poston said.