Washington, D.C. – Congressman Brad Sherman (D-San Fernando Valley) blasted SoCalGas for weak safety standards as the company resumes injections of natural gas into the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility adjacent to the Santa Clarita Valley.

Sherman released the following statement after this week’s announcement by the California Department of Conservation that SoCalGas can resume injections of natural gas into the facility:

“SoCalGas is going to begin injecting additional natural gas into the Aliso Canyon storage facility, the site of the world’s largest methane leak.

“They refuse to commit to sub-surface safety valves. Not now. Not later.

“One of the tragic ironies of the Aliso Canyon leak is that the broken well, SS25, had previously been equipped with a subsurface safety valve that was removed in 1979 and never replaced.

“The state should require deep sub-surface positive-pressure safety valves on all active wells at sub-surface natural gas storage facilities.

“They insist on using Aliso Canyon as the ‘Too Big To Fail’ lynchpin of natural gas storage. So if there’s a future problem at Aliso Canyon, residents of Porter Ranch will be told that operations must continue or all of Southern California will be without natural gas.

“No one natural gas storage facility should be so large that its closure can adversely affect the statewide economy or cause a significant portion of the state to be without heating, cooking, or electricity.

“Just because California’s standards for the storage of natural gas are stronger than those in other states or the federal government, does not mean they are sufficient.”

Background: Sherman’s home was as close as any residence to the Aliso Canyon gas leak. For nearly four months, the northern Los Angeles community of Porter Ranch suffered from the largest natural gas leak in U.S. history.

More than 7,000 families were displaced from their homes and forced to relocate. Two schools in the area were closed for the duration of the school year.