CARLSBAD, New Mexico - The bright yellow signs on U.S. 285 are the first indication that things aren’t right in Carlsbad. “US 285 south subject to sinkhole 1,000 feet ahead,” motorists are warned. But there is little other evidence that in southeastern New Mexico’s oil country, a giant cavern sits beneath the earth, ready to swallow part of the highway and possibly a church, several businesses and a trailer park. The cavern was formed over three decades as oil field service companies pumped fresh water into a salt layer more than 400 feet below the surface and extracted several million barrels of brine to help with drilling.....More
