Fran Pavley

SB 380 provides a moratorium on new natural gas injections at the Aliso Canyon facility by requiring rigorous testing protocols developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratories be developed and followed before operations resume.

“Often in the aftermath of disasters, memories begin to fade. Now that the news cameras have left Aliso Canyon and moved on, the governor and the Legislature have shown that their memories are vivid and that a hard lesson has been learned. We must do all we can to prevent another disaster,” said Senator Fran Pavley, author of SB 380. “This law puts public safety first.”

As urgency legislation, SB 380 takes effect immediately. It ensures that no new injections of gas into the storage facility can take place until all wells have undergone testing to detect leaks; any wells to be used to resume injections must undergo four additional tests of their structural integrity and be certified as safe; and that wells that have not been fully tested and certified must be temporarily plugged and isolated from the facility.

This rigorous testing regimen, developed by state oil and gas regulators in consultation with leading national energy experts, was required under the Brown administration’s emergency regulations, and SoCal Gas officials have said they can fully comply and be able to resume limited injections by late summer.

Enactment of SB 380 puts those promises into law, and ensures they will be kept.

The Aliso Canyon gas leak began on Oct. 23 and raged uncontrolled for nearly four months, spewing nearly 100,000 tons of methane into the skies above the San Fernando Valley. Thousands of residents of Porter Ranch and surrounding communities were sickened by the noxious fumes, and at various times more than 8,000 families were compelled to leave their homes. Even now, 3,000 homeowners have not returned because they are not certain whether their community is safe.

With the urgent issue of ensuring maximum safety procedures are in place at Aliso Canyon now resolved, Pavley said the Legislature must turn its attention to other important issues highlighted by the massive gas leak.

California is home to 14 natural gas storage facilities, and comprehensive safety reforms are needed. Pavley’s SB 887, now before the Senate Appropriations Committee, would require all gas storage facilities to continually monitor natural gas concentrations to detect the presence of leaks, establish standards for regular maintenance and inspection of wells, require operators to develop detailed emergency response plans, and enact other important safety regulations.

In addition, the Aliso Canyon leak and the repercussions from it have shown the state has become over-reliant on a single source – natural gas – to meet its energy needs. Pavley’s SB 886 would encourage greater use of energy storage, through batters and renewable fuels, to reduce the energy grid’s reliance on fossil fuels.

“We need to address tough questions about how we diversify our energy resources, reduce our dependence on dangerous fossil fuels and move toward the clean energy future our state has envisioned,” she said.

While SB 380 is aligned with the Brown administration’s existing emergency moratorium on injections, it goes further in ensuring safety at the facility and in evaluating the long-term future of the site, which is the largest natural gas storage facility in the Western United States.

The bill directs the California Public Utilities Commission by July 1, 2017, to open a proceeding to evaluate the feasibility of minimizing the use of or shutting down the facility over time.

“Now that a law is in place to ensure safety issues are appropriately addressed, I look forward to working with state energy agencies, energy providers and all stakeholders to make certain that Los Angeles and the state are deploying every possible resource to avoid energy reliability challenges this summer,” Pavley said.

Before being unanimously approved in the Senate, Assemblyman Wilk presented SB 380 on the floor of the Assembly on April 28, where it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

“I thank Senator Pavley for her leadership on this issue, as well as thank the Legislature and Governor Brown for capitalizing on this opportunity to put the safety of Porter Ranch first, before Aliso Canyon resumes any injections,” Wilk said. “Many of my Porter Ranch constituents and their families affected by the gas leak remain worried about moving back into their homes and SB 380 is a major step in allowing life in the community to finally return to normal.”

SB 380 aligns with the safety requirements established by Governor Brown’s State of Emergency order and requires that all 114 wells undergo two more tests to detect any possible leaks. Wells can only be put back into use after passing four additional structural integrity tests.