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December 24
1965 - Signal newspaper owner Scott Newhall shows up for a duel (of words) with rival Canyon Country newspaper publisher Art Evans, who no-shows and folds his paper soon after [story]
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A natural gas odorant leak at Southern California Gas Company’s Honor Rancho facility in Santa Clarita Wednesday morning posed no health risk to local residents, according to Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station officials.

Work at the facility resulted in a brief release of liquid odorant.

The leak has been contained and no natural gas was released.

The odorant is safe, but it may be noticeable to residents especially in the Newhall Ranch Road and/or Copperhill Drive area throughout the day.

The odor does not present a health or safety risk.

Natural gas is odorless and SoCalGas adds odorant so gas leaks are easier to detect by smell.

Safety information from SoCalGas is available at socalgascom/safety.

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12 Comments

  1. Matt Pakucko says:

    This is EXACTLY how the gas blowout in the North San Fernando Valley started…with the agencies lying about “The odor does not present a health or safety risk. ” We have all found out all too well that there are many serious and some permanent health problems with this stuff! Just Google “porter ranch gas leak”.

  2. Patty Glueck says:

    The sheriff’s dept. needs to check with the some 50 LA City firefighters (and spouses) about the dangers of buying the BS from SoCalGas. The first responders from the two stations in Porter Ranch have filed suit against SoCalGas, and their claim describes the various toxic chemicals they were exposed to, and mislead about by SoCalGas and the LA County Dept. of Public Health during and after the 2015 blowout.

  3. Pamela Baker says:

    This all sounds so familiar. There is no health risk, until suddenly there is. And further, routine maintenance is announced only after reports of odors by the community involved. We, in the NW SFV have been dealing with this for years. Demand answers and action by the Gs Co. now!

  4. Andrea Leon-Grossmann says:

    The one thing that SoCalGas does very well is lie. They lied when they said that there was nothing happening at Aliso Canyon after it blew out and on the third day after the blowout, and after thousands of residents were affected, they had to come clean on the third day. So, for 72 hours, the people were exposed to massive amounts of methane and other toxic/carcinogenic hydrocarbons while SoCalGas maintained everything was OK. The facility is still leaking and SoCalGas says everything is fine.
    In 2017, there was a toxic mercaptan leak in Rancho Park, where pets died and people got sick, again, it took 12 hours for SoCalGas to acknowledge it was one of their facilities that malfunctioned, and they still maintained that mercaptan is “not toxic,” even when the federal government disagrees.
    So, why should we believe anything SoCalGas says? We need to shut them down and kick them out of our community before more people suffer!

  5. The statement that the mercaptan is safe is a blatant lie. Exposure can cause a multitude of symptoms.

    I thought we learned this lesson from the 16 weeks Aliso Canyon was showering the San Fernando, Simi and Santa Clartia Valley with gas and chemicals.

    I suppose we’ll have to wait until the official event form is filed with the state, to determine what “really” occurred.

  6. Latke Drivledge says:

    Thank you for the informative article.

  7. Mark Morris says:

    The odorant is called mercaptan it’s toxic

    Methyl mercaptan is a colorless flammable gas with unpleasant odor described as rotten cabbage. It is easily ignited. When heated to decomposition, it emits highly toxic fumes and flammable vapors.

  8. waterwatcher says:

    Is there any regulatory oversight for this? Did the Health Department say it is safe. How do we know it is really just odorant?/ /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

  9. waterwatcher says:

    Has any regulatory agency inspected or tested the air quality? After the Aliso Canyon debacle, I don’t know why we would accept the gas company’s word without some kind of verification from and outside party. How do we know this wa just odorant and not gas. I is my understanding that the gas comes to California already odorized.
    People in this valley should know that the honor Rancho Storage facility is almost as bit as the Aliso Canyon Facility that exploded and additional pressurization was allowed there too.

  10. Dr Tom Williams says:

    Wells in Honor Ranch have been reported as having Subsurface Shutoff Valves which control blowouts if they are there…which the state records say some HR wells have…BUT SCGCo said the same in Aliso Canyon…AND the blowout well had >10yrs records saying the SSSV was there…but no SCGCo took it out in 1979….GasCo said that they need $5M to buy property for operations in Montebello…No they bought 15 houses which had leaking wells under them…rather than fixing the leaks…GasCo said they had a blowout in Playa Del Rey…when everyone else had pictures of two flaming blowouts….GasCo will LIE to neighbors and will run wells for $$$Profit…SSSV reduce profits for safety…like Aliso…Don’t believe anything GasCo tells you unless you get it in writing and then get it verified…LACo does not care about the safety either…tax revenues and chargeable time for LACo employees….

  11. Vikki Salmela says:

    Without any regulatory agency verifying what the gas company states, no one knows what all the chemicals released were, and the gas company is not likely to tell you. Mercaptan alone causes serious affects, let alone what it is mixed with, and for how long leaks have been occurring.I was living very close to Aliso, outside the days when SS25 blew, and lied to about it. It was a wake up call to what has been going on at Aliso for years, lies covered up. I was forced to evacuate permanently, due to the continual off gassing that still remains. If there were residents who got sick from this current release at Honor Ranch, enough to call in, enough to cause vomiting, why should anyone believe it was harmless after the huge cover up at Aliso?

  12. Nick says:

    More info please

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