The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion by Supervisor Kathryn Barger Tuesday to send a five-signature letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom and the LA County legislative delegation in support of a proposed expedited closure of the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Facility.
This action includes immediate direction to the California Public Utilities Commission and the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources to accelerate a permanent closure plan.
“With today’s motion, the county continues to fight for the communities impacted by the Aliso Canyon gas leak,” Supervisor Barger said Tuesday. “It has become clear that the only way to ensure this community’s protection is to call on our state leaders to expeditiously and safely close the Aliso Canyon well.”
The leak began on October 23, 2015, and an independent root cause analysis conducted by Blade Energy Partners determined the cause was a rupture of the outer 7-inch well casing due to microbial corrosion from the outside resulting from contact with groundwater.
The blowout and subsequent leak at Aliso Canyon in 2015 was the largest release of natural gas in American history, which caused the relocation of thousands of residents, students and vulnerable populations. As a result of the leak, 97,000 metric tons of methane and 7,300 metric tons of ethane were released into the atmosphere.
Since the leak, the county of Los Angeles has fought for enhanced safety regulations and oversight at all natural gas storage facilities. LA County partnered with the State of California and the city of Los Angeles on a $119 million legal settlement with the Southern California Gas Company that will provide for a health effects study in the North San Fernando Valley.
Barger has secured open space adjacent to the facility to help prevent further encroachment and pushed for a comprehensive root cause analysis, which found major faults with the Gas Company and the regulators who oversee the facility.
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5 Comments
That area had had gas leaks since the 1950’s. I looked at the new houses in the area but the smell of gas/methane was so bad I decided no to buy. I knew it would be trouble. This was ~15 years ago. Now the question is where will all that natural gas be stored?
The gas facility started operating in 1972. Many homes were built in the affected area long before then. Some even before oil operations (if you considered the affected area, which isn’t just by Aliso Canyon…many diseases, including toxic-related cancers, have developed in a ten mile radius from the site. Until the use of gas is completely eliminated, which is coming, SoCalGas can use its pipelines (in most other states, pipelines are used, not storage wells).
What was once far away from homes is now right ton top of them. I wish LA County Sups would shut down Chiquita Canyon Landfill because of their continued disregard for the Conditional Use Permit they had in the past and currently have. If anyone cares, the toxic chemicals from the Santa Paula Explosion are still in CCL, even after LA County knew the truth of the changing of the bills of laiding stating the loads were not toxic.
Hey there, all y’all;
It ain’t nothing new as has been pointed out above and long before. Anyplace where you can drill for oil and then later drill for gas is part of the local geology; Synclines and anticlines that trap petroleum products for thousands of years make great sources of petroleum products. How else do you think these valleys got populated so fast?
Have you been to Santa Paula and seen the vast oil/gas fields? Have you driven above Santa Paula and seen the surface petroleum (aka “tar”) leaking out of the hillsides?
It’s just what the earth under the surface of California gives us, and if we can use it well then so be it. We just have to understand what happens after, and so far only the oil companies have figured that out.
Ask any petrologist (aka oil geologist); once you empty out the reservoir of easy-to-get-oil, you end up with a lot of other issues. Subsidence, aka sinkholes, leaks, flares, etc are bound to occur from time to time. Building large tracts of suburban homes on top of them are a risky business at best.
Too bad nobody told us about that.
Also, it’s too bad nobody made The Gas Co stop to think what pumping billions of cubic yards of natural gas into those same geologic structures might do over time.
Newhall and Saugus got lucky; the Sheriff’s Dept built a prison on top of one of the other big stinkholes in the SCV – Pitchess Detention Center. Those hills are still full of giant grasshoppers pumping oil, but at least none of the prisoners have filed lawsuits over the environmental poisons.
Newhall is especially lucky since the oil-bearing rocks that built the town apparently didn’t also contain a lot of NG. Otherwise, everything from the 5 fwy at Valencia Blvd and east to the 14 would be dealing with the same issues folks in Granada Hills/Porter Ranch are.
As for the esteemed and honorable County Supervisors who have allowed the county’s largest “landfill” to grow like a metastatic cancer just west of the intersection of I-5 and Hwy 126; well, what else did you expect?
Lying, cheating, and paying respects to the almighty dollar is the essence of keeping our local economies running smoothly. That and providing even more “open space” up into the hills and high valleys so that we can have lots more people living in and around the same old highways, water systems, and health threats as our folks used to do.
Until we can’t.
Unless someone figures out how to put useful brains into all the lemmings that keep surging over the hills and into the SCV. And as long as that keeps up, turning it into another San Fernando Valley – which includes Porter Ranch, etc will just keep on keeping on.
OBTW, the wells pumping oil, (and gas) out of the hills above Granada Hills, Porter Ranch, etc were there long before the developments were. The use of those “empty” rock formations as “storage wells” started when the cost of oil pumping kept going up for much less profit. And then of course, some bright person decided that the underground strata would make great storage wells for natural gas pumped in from other places.
And here we are. Tilting at the modern equivalent of Wind Mills.
Restricting Aliso Canyon cost Los Angeles $7.6 million which is paid by customers.
It will be far worse, possibly with rolling blackouts, if it’s shut down.
The problem was fixed, it is safe now. Mass hysteria is driving this shutdown madness.