Louisiana Town Residents Blame Private Firm for Shaking Homes

Terrified residents in a small Louisiana town claim their lives are falling apart due to mysterious sounds and violent vibrations that are cracking homes and making people sick. People living across the Mississippi River from Plaquemine Point say these loud rumblings started only after a private equity-owned waste management company installed a new facility on the opposite bank. Iberville Parish has been taking complaints about shaking structures since VLS Environmental Solutions began operations there roughly two years ago, according to minutes from a parish council meeting held in January.

VLS Environmental Solutions is a waste management and marine services firm owned by I Squared Capital, which is based in Miami, Florida. In 2022, the company expanded into Plaquemine, the parish seat, where it built its Sunshine Facility to offer full-service barge cleaning and repair along the river. Local residents say operations at this site emit disruptive low-frequency sounds that ruin sleep and cause physical damage to their property, according to those same council meeting minutes.

'It pierces your head. It's not really loud when you're outside. But when you get on the porch, you begin to hear it really intensely,' Kyte Aymond told The Advocate during the town hall. Les Ann Kirkland added that she lived in an old house very solid and one hundred years old which never shook until those people arrived there. Rebecca said the vibrations have already cracked her driveway according to the official records from the parish council.

However, a recent study conducted by the town found nothing out of the ordinary regarding these claims. Iberville Parish ran tests that found no frequencies outside the normal range being emitted from the site, according to reports from NOLA. John Clark, Executive Director of Economic Development for the parish, told the Council that no events were recorded with low-frequency sound capable of causing rumbling or shaking structures. He noted that some complaints involved incidents perceived as more intense than what people might imagine.

The study was carried out by IVC Technologies using multiple devices designed to measure vibration intensity. Two of these instruments were intended to record data between May 22 and July 13, but one malfunctioned and displayed a blank data card at the end of the testing period. The cause of this technical failure remains unclear. Plaquemine Lock State Historic Site was one of the specific spots where vibrations were measured during this investigation conducted by the town officials.

Residents expressed deep skepticism about these findings immediately after they were released. I don't think they hired the right kind of people to come do the study and used the right kind of equipment, Roxanne Traigle told NOLA while living near the river. The parish remains open to conducting further tests if neighbors demand it according to the outlet reporting on this developing story.