The mysterious bubbling incidents at Lake Peigneur have made national news, as National Public Radio last week ran a four-minute feature on the phenomenon at the Iberia-Vermilion border. Meanwhile, residents claimed they saw another bubbling incident this week at the 1,300-acre lake.

That makes at least eight incidents since summer 2005 of bubbling, which has alarmed residents who say the episodes last a few hours then turns into a long stream of froth that eventually disappears.

No one has been hurt or injured because of the incidents, as far as residents and officials are aware.

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Residents have discussed the issue with Louisiana State University geologists, the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Environmental Quality and AGL Resources, which has a facility that stores natural gas in caverns beneath the lake, to discern what could be causing the bubbling.

Thus far, no one knows. LSU officials said at a Feb. 27 meeting in Baton Rouge there is not enough data to determine the cause, but it could be air trapped in an old mine, naturally occurring methane, a breach from the old collapsed salt mine that sits below Lake Peigneur or remnants from former oil and gas wells.

“Save Lake Peigneur” residents are concerned that AGL’s facility is responsible for the bubbling.

AGL officials again denied that allegation Thursday.

Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Bryant O. Hammet Jr. sent a letter to the Parish Council recently denying its request to limit access to the lake to only those with official business until the bubbling’s cause can be determined.

Hammett said while the department appreciates and shares the council’s concerns for potential threats to public safety caused by the bubbling gases rising from Lake Peigneur, it “lacks the requisite legal authority to limit access to the lake.”

“I didn’t support that,” Councilman Naray Hulin said Friday. “They (residents) wanted us to close it down, but if businesses lose money we could get sued. They put us on the spot.”

DNR sent two divers down for a visual scan on March 1. The next day, DNR took samples from the mud near the bubbling area. DNR is still awaiting findings from those tests. A DEQ sampling of the froth found nothing unusual. Other tests found weathered diesel components, but nothing to pinpoint the cause of the bubbling, which eyewitnesses said can form geysers that jump a foot into the air.

Nara Crowley, a nearby resident, has seen the bubbling but said she and others feel the testing has been inadequate so far.

“They need to do sonar imaging,” Crowley said Thursday.

Crowley is a vocal opponent of AGL’s plans to build two more new caverns into the salt dome. The natural gas would be stored 4,000 feet below the surface. DNR stopped the construction last summer, citing AGL’s late lease payments. The Atlanta-based company sued and is seeking an injunction against the state and a “declaration that its mineral lease remains in full force.”

Poston said AGL is “continuing to have conversations with the state” and the suit is on hold for now, but “ideally we’ll find some common ground to either re-activate our lease or get a new lease.”

Poston said he’s “pretty certain” the bubbling is not linked to their organization and the state is the appropriate group to do testing.

“If we were the ones taking the lead on trying to do the tests it probably wouldn’t be accepted by Nara Crowley and the opposition group,” Poston said. “We want to help, maybe from a funding perspective to help pay for some of these tests, but at the end of the day our association with the tests probably wouldn’t help.”

Poston said he and company representatives Jack Holt and John Kennedy visited Lake Peigneur Wednesday. He said they understand why residents want to keep it as pristine as possible, considering its past. In 1980, Texaco accidentally punched a hole in the dome. The subsequent whirlpool sucked down 11 barges, trucks and other objects across a 50- to 70-acre area. Fourteen years later, AGL placed two caverns below the surface.

There has been no incidents reported from those existing caverns.

“One of the old guys out there told me that 40 to 50 years ago there were oil platforms across the whole lake,” Poston said. “So, to get from that to where it (the lake) is today, I can appreciate that people want to protect that. But right now, we have no plans to abandon our project (to build two new wells).”

“I think we have the same goal as the residents to determine what the cause is,” Holt said.

“We’re almost 100 percent sure it’s not our company that’s causing it.”

Residents have said that years of salt and sulfur mining and oil and gas drilling at the lake have taken their toll, residents said.