County Supervisor Calls Aliso Canyon Gas Leak 'Mini-Chernobyl"

Hundreds of residents packed a hearing today where air-quality regulators discussed a plan to have Southern California Gas Co. begin installing equipment to capture and incinerate natural gas leaking from a well at its Aliso Canyon storage facility in the Porter Ranch area.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District Hearing Board meeting at Granada Hills Charter High School -- which got underway about 9 a.m. and ended about 4 p.m. -- was called to consider an abatement order that would require the Gas Co. to minimize natural gas leaking from the well, and capture and dispose of leaking gas.

Residents, activists, environmental experts, politicians and others gave testimony.

Some complained of living with gas fumes and resulting health issues for years and many called for the facility to be closed down.

“Please do something,” resident Maureen Capra said. “You need to shut it down. It’s killing us.”

She tearfully said family members won’t come to her house because of the fumes and fear of illness.

County Supervisor Mike Antonovich compared the problem with one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.

“This is a critical problem. This is a mini-Chernobyl. This is a problem,” he said to applause. “They’ve had their Thanksgiving, they’ve had their Hanukkah, they’ve had their Christmas, they’ve had their New Year, they’ve had their family celebrations all disrupted because of irresponsible actions, from the state to the gas company.”

Gas. Co. attorney Robert Wyman of the firm Latham & Watkins LLP stated at the meeting that the leak was “being addressed as safely and expeditiously as possible.”

“This is SoCalGas’s highest priority,” he said.

According to Kristine Lloyd, a project manager with the Gas Co., the utility plans to install a system that will capture a portion of the leaking gas, carry it a safe distance from the facility, remove fluids from the gas “and then either incinerate it or filter the odorant out of it.”

“The captured odorized natural gas will be combusted by thermal oxidizers that will safely burn the gas in an enclosed, ceramic-insulated chamber,” Lloyd said.

AQMD spokesman Sam Atwood said exactly when the process would begin is still in question, depending on the processing of permits.

“Several things have to happen, but the bottom line is we’re asking the hearing board to order the Gas Co. to -- in some fashion -- collect and dispose of the maximum amount of gas feasible,” Atwood told City News Service.

Lloyd said the system is being designed to be installed in two phases, and could ultimately incinerate up to 20 million standard cubic feet per day or filter odorant out of 14 million cubic feet per day.

The proposed abatement order would also require SoCalGas to continuously monitor the well with an infrared camera to improve monitoring of the leak, stop all injection of gas into the well, withdraw the maximum amount of gas possible from the well and provide data collected by the Gas Co. or its contractors since late October to determine the amount of methane that has escaped from the well.

The leak was discovered Oct. 23.

SoCalGas would also be required to submit to the AQMD a plan for an enhanced leak-detection and well-inspection program. The order also calls on the Gas Co. to commit to funding a health study on the impacts of exposure to the leaking gas.

“The health study shall also analyze any health impacts from any odor suppressants or neutralizers, and their byproducts, if any, used to mitigate other odors in the nearby community,” according to the proposed order. “The health study shall be completed by a third party approved by the SCAQMD and SoCalGas, who shall not unreasonably withhold approval of the contractor.”

The hearing is due to continue next Saturday.

Several protesters gathered outside the hearing this morning demanding that the SoCalGas facility be shut down, ABC7 reported.

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks, said he met with officials from SoCalGas on Friday, pushing them to actively extract gas from the well “as fast as possible every hour of every day.” After the meeting, however, he said, “Unfortunately, SoCalGas confirmed that they will not be withdrawing gas as fast as possible.”

He said the Gas Co. has only been withdrawing gas from the facility “as fast as they could sell the gas.”

“Withdrawing the gas will reduce pressure, thus slowing the leak,” Sherman said. “It will facilitate stopping the leak as efforts to date have been thwarted by the intense pressure of gas coming up from underground storage. And maximizing withdrawal may drain the facility -- or at least reduce pressure to the point where gas stops leaking -- before March.”

Atwood noted that the proposed abatement order does require the extraction of gas from the well, and a ban on injecting any more into the well.

SoCalGas is in the process of digging relief wells that are expected to allow the company to cap the leak. That process, however, is not expected to be completed until February or March.

Thousands of residents have been relocated from the Porter Ranch area after complaining of health problems from the leak, and thousands more have requested relocation.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday declared a state of emergency in the Porter Ranch area due to the continuing leak. The order came two days after Brown met with a handful of residents in the Porter Ranch area and toured the storage facility and a relief well.

Brown’s emergency proclamation orders that all viable actions be taken to stop the leak, withdraw natural gas from the facility and develop contingency plans in case a relief well being dug at the site fails to cap the leaking gas.

According to the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council, Brown’s office has agreed to take part in a community meeting that will be held Jan. 15 at Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch. Members of the governor’s staff and officials from state agencies involved in monitoring and investigating the leak are expected to attend. Members of the Neighborhood Council have asked that Brown attend personally, but that has not yet been determined.

According to a recent securities filing, the Gas Co. has spent more than $50 million combating the leak. Citing the filing, the Los Angeles Times reported that more than 25 lawsuits have been filed against the utility, and “the cost of defending the lawsuits, and any damages, if awarded, could be significant.”

According to The Times, the utility has told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it had “at least four types of insurance policies that it believes will cover many of the current and expected claims, losses and litigation associated with the natural gas leak at Aliso Canyon.”

Those policies have a combined limit available “in excess of $1 billion,” the utility said.

The Gas Co. is a subsidiary of San Diego’s Sempra Energy, which has seen its stock price fall more than 15 percent since the leak was discovered at the facility in north San Fernando Valley.

The AQMD will take up the issue again next weekend.

City News Service; Photo: Wikimedia Commons