County Sues State Regulators Seeking Answers Before Aliso Canyon Facility Is Reopened

LOS ANGELES, CA — Los Angeles County filed suit Wednesday against state regulators, asking a judge to require more safety and environmental review before allowing Southern California Gas Co. to reopen its Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility.

"State regulators must get to the bottom of what caused the Aliso Canyon blowout, provide the public with results of that investigation, and conduct a public environmental review process that considers alternatives and mitigations," Supervisor Kathryn Barger said.

She said the county's lawsuit seeks to ensure that the California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources "fully complies with its obligation to certify that the Aliso Canyon facility can be operated safely and that a devastating well failure and gas leak can never happen again."

County lawyers allege that DOGGR has violated state law and failed to adequately address well safety and seismic risks.

"(Regulators) have backtracked on this requirement and have accepted an admittedly incomplete risk management plan and an outdated, pre-leak emergency response plan," the suit alleges.

The county is calling for an environmental impact report before the facility is re-opened and is seeking a court order banning any gas injections until the root cause of the gas leak is determined.

SoCalGas said it has met the requirements of the comprehensive, state- mandated safety review and provided additional information requested by state agencies. The company assured the public that the approved wells are safe.

"According to a federal report, the leak occurred in the outer casing of the SS-25 well. Regardless of what the root cause analysis finds, the state's Comprehensive Safety Review has already demonstrated that the outer casings of every well approved for use are safe," the utility said in a statement.

"Moreover, under new regulations, gas will no longer flow through the outer casing. Gas will only flow through newly installed and pressure-tested, inner steel tubing. The outer casing will now serve only as a secondary layer of protection."

A DOGGR spokesman said the department does not comment on pending litigation.

In February, SoCalGas settled a suit with the South Coast Air Quality Management District for $8.5 million, including $1 million in funding for an SCAQMD-sponsored health study on the impacts of the leak.

Barger has said that settlement did not go far enough in providing funding for a long-term health study or additional safety analysis.

The county has separately sued the utility in connection with the four- month gas leak at the Porter Ranch facility that spewed 109,000 metric tons of methane into the air from October 2015 to February 2016, displacing thousands of residents.

SoCalGas withdrew natural gas from the facility in January for the first time in about a year. The utility said the withdrawals were needed to maintain service levels in the face of stepped-up demand prompted by cold weather that gripped the region. Critics, however, contend the move was made in an effort by the utility to sway state regulators to allow the utility to resume operations at Aliso Canyon.

Thirty-eight of the 114 wells at the facility have passed a series of tests indicating they can be safely used to again inject natural gas into the storage facility, according to SoCalGas. The other wells have been temporarily and mechanically sealed off from the storage reservoir awaiting safety tests.

"Unnecessary delays in resuming injections needlessly puts more than 20 million people and thousands of businesses and critical facilities at risk of natural-gas and electricity-service interruptions," SoCalGas warned.

By ELIZABETH MARCELLINO, City News Service