February 10, 2016 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - “One thing I happen to know about — and I can’t make any claim about it now — but I know this. Methane, when it’s exposed to sunlight, can produce as a by-product formaldehyde… Southern California gas knows that too…
it transforms — when it’s subjected to sunlight — to formaldehyde.
SoCalGas knows that, and they ought to be straight about it. They ought
to be telling us… but they’re not.” - Robert F. Kennedy Jr..
WATCH: Porter Ranch Gas Leak - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Who is Responsible.
“When all that methane is exposed to California sunshine it gets converted to formaldehyde. The nosebleeds, headaches etc. aren’t from the “odorant”… they are signs of formaldehyde exposure… These same symptoms are seen in people living near gas compressor stations due to leaking methane being converted… Obviously, this is something SoCal doesn’t want to talk about or you to know about.”
* The user comment above was almost certainly written by Dr.
Joseph L. Pfeifer, M.D. (director of trauma and surgical critical care
at Berkshire Medical Center), who recently authored a column mentioning formaldehyde, methane, and gas compressor stations. - Joseph Pfeifer.
A peer reviewed study… reveals dangerous levels of air
toxins near fracking operations… The research was led by David
Carpenter, a physician… he’s most concerned about the high levels of benzene and formaldehyde… He says the formaldehyde is formed… as a byproduct of methane leaks, when exposed to the sun. - NPR.
Formaldehyde is also formed from methane in the presence of sunlight… It can affect nearly every tissue in the human body, leading to acute (dermal allergies, asthma) and chronic (neuro-, reproductive, hematopoietic, genetic and pulmonary toxicity and cellular damage) health effects. - Environmental Health (Journal).
“We focused a lot in our report on… benzene and formaldehyde… these are very dangerous for public health…
Cancer isn’t going to occur tomorrow, it is going to occur 10-20-30
years from now in people that are exposed… What we are seeing right now
are respiratory infections and nose bleeds. Think about formaldehyde,
that’s basically an embalming fluid, if you breathe it in 24 hours a day… you are going to pickle epithelium in your nose. Many of the people living around these sites have nose bleeds.” - Dr. David Carpenter, physician & director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at Univ. at Albany.
Formaldehyde is a very dangerous chemical in human health; It gives negative effect to respiration channel, liver and kidney function… - American Journal of Analytical Chemistry.
What happens when someone breathes too much formaldehyde?…
People can have symptoms such as: sore throat, cough, scratchy eyes,
nosebleeds… [T]he longer the exposure, the greater the chance of getting
cancer.Exposure to formaldehyde might increase the chance of getting cancer even at levels too low to cause symptoms. - CDC.
February 6, 2016 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - California Attorney General Kamala Harris has filed a lawsuit against
the gas company responsible for the methane gas leak near Los Angeles,
calling it a “monumental environmental disaster.” Over 30 suits and
probes related to the disaster are pending.
On Tuesday, Harris joined both Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer
and Los Angeles County in a revised civil complaint filed against
Southern California Gas Company (SoCal Gas), a subsidiary of the San
Diego-based Sempra Energy. The California Air Resources Board,
represented by Harris, also joined the lawsuit.
A methane leak from an underground gas storage facility in Aliso Canyon was first detected on October 23 last year, but no official cause has been given for the event that has forced 6,600 homes in the Porter Ranch area of Los Angeles to be evacuated.
“This gas leak has caused significant damage to the Porter Ranch community as well as our statewide efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow the impacts of climate change. My office will continue to lead this cross-jurisdictional enforcement action to ensure justice and relief for Californians and our environment,” Harris said in a statement on Tuesday.
On Monday, SoCal Gas released an “incident update,” citing its own success in drilling past 200 feet of caprock above the storage zone. The next step is more drilling, but will be within the storage reservoir, requiring care and accuracy to intercept the targeted well at “the appropriate angle and depth,” the statement read. The goal is to stop the leak by the end of February.
WATCH: California methane leak now said to be affecting pets.
The updated lawsuit contends that by causing the release of some 80,000 metric tons of methane so far, SoCal Gas broke health and safety codes, public nuisance laws, and violated hazardous materials reporting requirements. Furthermore, it alleges the company’s business practices were unethical. Civil penalties, injunctions, and restitution are all sought to hold the company accountable.
So far, there are 11 governmental lawsuits or investigations on the local, state and federal level, and 20 private lawsuits waged by affected residents against SoCal Gas.
California Governor Jerry Brown recognized the situation as a state of emergency on January 6. - RT.
A Porter Ranch resident wears a gas mask during a protest
Saturday outside a meeting of the Air Quality Management Board over the
Aliso Canyon gas leak. The leak
started in October and has forced
thousands of residents to flee from the Los Angeles suburb of Porter
Ranch. Regulators have ordered the
gas company to shut down the leaking
well; some residents want the entire facility shuttered.
Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
January 29, 2016 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - “This the largest natural gas leak in history. We were up there yesterday… what we heard was aloud sound of natural gas escaping that you could hear quite loudly from over half a mile away.” - Rep. Brad Sherman, U.S. House of Representatives.
WATCH: Utilities and Commerce Committee Hearing in Granada Hills over Aliso Canyon Gas Leak.
“Now it’s kind of simple — if you have a well blow-out, you quit
injecting [more gas] underground… No order had been issued [to stop
this] though… We sent a letter [to the Division of Oil, Gas &
Geothermal Resources (DOGGR)] saying, “Stop all of the injections, until
you can stop the leak”… So we sent a letter on Dec. 1 asking them to
stop all injections… Nine days later, they said, “Stop injecting gas”…
You’d think that at least temporarily settled it — because if [SoCalGas]
didn’t like that, SoCalGas could have temporarily appealed… I have no
record of appeal… AQMD [Air Quality Management District] inspected the
facility on Nov. 10… and they found all these wells that weren’t accessible — 16 approximately… We don’t know yet why they were inaccessible. We also learned that 15 wells were leaking. We also don’t know why that happened. I spoke at the AQMD hearing this last week and said, “I’m concerned that the fact that now you guys are looking at these injection wells — you don’t know what that means.” You see,DOGGR knows what that means— and that’s a sign that SoCalGas lost control entirely of the entire field and it’s leaking everywhere…
So we were like, “We want proof. Now if it’s just coincidental, and you
show us why that’s not what’s happening, that’s fine, but provide the
evidence”… Families have a right to know what’s going on in that oil
field.” - Patricia Oliver, attorney (at 11:30 in), Porter Ranch Town Hall Meeting.
WATCH: Porter Ranch Town Hall Meeting - January 22, 2016.
Residents attack slow response to what official called ‘a mini-Chernobyl’… “This is a mini-Chernobyl,”
Mike Antonovich, the LA county supervisor, told a public hearing at the
weekend… [It] is the largest leak of… methane known to experts. - The Guardian.
A new report shows the level of toxins released… has been seriously underestimated,
state regulators said… The findings were released in response to
[SoCalGas' admission that they] underestimated the number of times the
cancer-causing chemical benzene has spiked. - CBS/AP.
Officials Waited Months To Monitor California’s Massive Gas Leak — A massive natural gas leak… had been out of control
for more than a month when the county’s acting health director said in
November that long-term impacts of the cancer-causing chemical benzene
should be measured. It took many more weeks to implement the testing…
“We can always look back and say, ‘Why didn’t we start with an expanded
monitoring program?’” said Angelo Bellomo, deputy county director for
health protection… Rob Jackson, an environmental scientist at Stanford
University, said… it had undermined the ability to measure health
impacts. - AP.
Porter Ranch residents report unexplained ailments, behaviors in pets… [A family] lost all 20 of their brightly colored Koi fish after they started dying… [Others] have noticed fewer bird and wildlife sightings. - City News Service.
[The Katz's], parents of five… are living a nightmare…
Her pride and joy was her garden and a koi pond. She cries when she
recounts how all 20 fish died…“The birds, the butterflies, all of this is gone. It’s quiet now.” - Al Jazeera.
“We used to see coyotes and animals” [Jennifer Marotta] said. “It makes me wonder how bad it really is.” - L.A. Daily News.
[Residents] have noticed fewerbird and wildlife sightings… [Attorney Rex Parris wrote to officials] that pets are ill or disappearing and wildlife, such as birds and rabbits, seem to be disappearing as well
from the community… [Sally Taylor’s dog] quickly became lethargic and
threw up some 20 times within an hour… “[The vet hospital] said it was
the worst blood work the vet has ever seen”… For the Balen family, it’s the sound of birds they’ve missed the most. In late December, they said the absence made their home… “completely quiet… for 10 years… every morning, we wake up to the birds chirping. Not anymore.” - L.A. Daily News.
KABC,
Jan 19, 2016: [The gas leak is] affecting many pets… “We’re seeing
probably several hundred total and it’s been going on for around three
months now,” [Dr. David Smith at Northridge Animal Hospital] said. Smith
said it started shortly after [they] first reported the leak… Smith
said he has serious concerns about the health risks for the animals. - .
Government officials have come up with their own interesting explanations for the disappearance of wildlife:
Wild animals may have left the area because of the noisecoming from crews attempting to fix the well, [Department of Fish and Wildlife] spokeswoman Mary Fricke said. - L.A. Times.
January 25, 2016 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - The following excerpts are taken from the Aliso Canyon Gas Leak Town Hall, which was published on January 11, 2016.
Several quotations have been highlighted for emphasis.
• Bob Bowcock, environmental scientist (at 18:00 in):
“We’re starting to hear about the largest natural gas well leak in
the U.S… The State of California and Southern California Gas Company say
it’s leaking somewhere between 45,000 and 50,000 kilograms [99,000 and
110,000 pounds] per hour… We’ve done actual field measurements [and] it
can be as much as three times greater than what’s being reported.”
• Erin Brockovich (at 31:05 in): “Every person I’ve talked to — thousands of people — are sufferingrashes, dizziness, shakiness, they feel like they’re in a fog,
nosebleeds, massive headaches… Reports of animals losing their hair,
animals vomiting, animals with diarrhea — people actually relocate to
hotels to find their animals have passed… You are actually the guinea pig in this situation… As we’re now learning that themagnitude of this is way beyond what any of us have ever been told, and reaches beyondwhere we have come in and know that there’s been dangers. We need to learn that that’s been happening.
• Camille Sears, meteorologist (at 41:45 in):
“SoCalGas has said that things aren’t so bad because the leak is 1,200
feet above the elevation of the community, and that gas is lighter than
air. Well, that’s not really the whole story… That gas is going downhill… [Infrared videos] show the plume just running down the hill like water… [which then] goes right into the communities. It’s very little dilution… At night, from midnight to 6:00 in the morning, 90% of the time the winds are coming from that direction [from the gas leak to the communities].
I doubled checked this, because it seems like a phenomenal amount of
time that the winds are blowing from the gas leak to the community… It’s
a very unfortunate situation that the leak is located where it is…
The releases are probably two to three times greater than what the California Air Research Board has been reporting… It’s becoming quite clear that the State is underestimating the amount of gas that’s leaking. I’ve been doing this kind of analysis for 35 years. I’ve done thousands of them since I started doing this in 1980. I’ve never seen a release of this magnitude before… I feel really bad… to report this.It’s not only a worst case emission, it’s the great magnitude of emissions coming out, but it’s also sort of a worst case meteorological scenario
that these releases happened to blow from the gas leak down in to the
community at night 90 percent of the time. As we’ve seen, those gas emissions tend to flow downhill like water and go right into the communities.”
• Robin Greenberg, attorney (at 1:01:00 in): “Pets are really being affected… Time and again someone sends me photographs of their pet and have these horrible sores.”
• Bowcock (at 1:43:45 in): “This isa very dangerous condition, and it’s something that you all should be very, very concernedwith… That’s a pretty substantial area and everyone in that are needs to be concerned about it… Veterinarians are very concerned about it… because the vets are actually seeing a lot of really, really sick animals… It is impacting the animals much, much more — believe me.”
January 10, 2016 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - Utility is installing screens to contain oily mist at leaking well near Porter Ranch…
The structures under construction on the west side of the well head are
designed to capture airborne droplets of a brine solution that “may
have contained trace amounts of oil naturally occurring within the leaking well’s reservoir,” said Trisha Muse, a spokeswoman for SoCal Gas… Now, a mixture of brine water and oil is rising up into the gas company’s natural gas storage zone, then traveling up the well and into the air. As a result, local residents are finding droplets of dark brown residue on their homes, vehicles, fish ponds and gardens… [The company] acknowledged that some residents had asked about “dark brown spots on their property.” “We sampled it and, according to our retained toxicologist and medical expert,” the company said, “the residue contained heavier hydrocarbons (similar to motor oil) but does not pose a health risk.”… On Monday, plaintiffs’ attorneys sent a letter to state regulatory officials [and] demanded that state regulators “explain what is happening with the petroleum now surfacing.”… “There is a complete lack of information in the well files,” their letter says, “to show where the gas and petroleum migrates underground and the risk for creating sink holes and geysers.” - Los Angeles Times.
[A]n oily mist… has been surfacing… The seepage is the result of changing dynamics deep underground… “They (the demister pads) are necessary because as the reservoir pressure declines, fluids (oil and water) encroach into the reservoir and are then carried to surface with the gas. - Los Angeles Daily News.
Residents… point out cars, outdoor furniture and houses which have been marked with brown, oily spots… Tim O’Connor, a lawyer with the Environmental Defense Fund, has called it “an environmental and public health catastrophe,” said . “In terms of timelines this is going to surpass the gulf oil problem by a mile.” - BBC.
Gov. Jerry Brown, faced with mounting public anger and no end in sight to the leak, declared a state of emergency… Mitchell Englander, the Los Angeles city councilman who represents Porter Ranch [said] “This is one of the most disruptive, catastrophic environmental events that I’ve seen. It’s a truly chaotic crisis.”… Many who have stayed have taken to wearing surgical masks when they garden to keep out the rotten-egg smell and the oily mist that sometimes leaves brown residue on their cars… Dennis Arriola, the president of Southern California Gas Company [said] that experts had “never seen anything like this.” - New York Times.
SoCalGas and public officials have turned [Porter Ranch's Matt Pakucko] and his fellow residents into “guinea pigs.”… [Sally Benson, who runs an energy storage lab at Stanford University] shares a worry of many in Porter Ranch as they deal with the mundanities of the leak: that the gas plume will somehow become ignited, leading to [an] explosion… “They’re really fortunate that this one hasn’t caught fire,” Benson says… [The FAA] has imposed a no-fly zone above Porter Ranch “out of concerns that fumes from the gas leak could be ignited from the air.” Schwecke, the SoCalGas vice president, says workers near the relief well are taking every precaution, not using their cellphones and working with brass hammers, which don’t spark… [David Balen, a local businessman on the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council] showed me photographs of a white dust that had collected on concrete surfaces around his property; an expert was coming to test the substance, which Balen thought was something toxic. - Newsweek.
The governor of California has declared a state of emergency in a suburb of Los Angeles over the leaking of methane gas… the company is installing large mesh screens around the leak site to try and hinder the oily mist from spraying down on the community. - BBC.
The sulfurous scent of a natural-gas leak hangs in the air as mail carriers wearing gas masks make rounds… “This is the biggest community and environmental disaster I’ve ever seen, bar none,” said Mitchell Englander, who has represented Porter Ranch on the Los Angeles City Council since 2011. “Life there is not on hold — it’s on the edge and it’s on the brink of pandemonium.” - Bloomberg.
Their animals are dying… their fish are dying in their
fish bowls, their dogs are dying, their cats are getting sick. And their
children are getting sick — they’re suffering nose bleeds, they’re
suffering terrible debilitating migraine headaches, asthma attacks,
respiratory infections, eye infections, ear infections, stomach
ailments… The health impact — it’s not just methane coming out of that hole… This is global crisis, more importantly this is a local crisis. Because not only do you have methane — you have benzene, toluene, xylene, which are carcinogenic. You have hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide — which are neurotoxic, which can injure your brain, affect memory, injure your kidneys, your liver, your other bodily organs. There’s also a lot of radon gas being measured in the area. People believe — we don’t know if this is true — the gas that is leaking at 2 miles deep is now coming out and pushing that radon up into people’s living rooms, their bedrooms, their nurseries. - Robert F. Kennedy Jr..
The leak has caused a continuous flow of gases and fluids.
Methane alone is leaking 100,000 pounds per hour, according to Los
Angeles city attorney Mike Feuer. Along with that greenhouse gas is
methyl mercaptans (odorants added to gas to aid in leak detection) and
aromatic hydrocarbons. More concernedly, health officials have identified benzene and radon, both known carcinogens. - Lawyers and Settlements.
Dr. Cyrus Rangan, the Director of Toxicology and
Assessment for the county, came to CBS2/KCAL9 to answer questions…. It’s been reported that radon is being released… “This is a theoretical possibility,” Dr. Rangan said, “and when you’re addressing a problem that might be several hundred or even several thousand feet deep, you might generate what are called preferential pathways for something like radon, beneath the Earth’s surface, to make its way up to the surface. So primarily our concern about radon is from the worker’s exposure, for the people actually doing the repair job. If we find radon there, we can address the situation. And if radon does exist in the work site then we may need to have to look at the residential community and monitor for it.” - CBS LA.
There is the issue of radon, a naturally occurring byproduct of uranium… as SoCalGas and its partners bore into the ground in an attempt to stem a leak that is unleashing a constant cloud of gas into the atmosphere, radon has crept into the conversation. - Lawyers and Settlements.
Public officials and the gas industry have a tricky and deceptive way of saying things. Methane itself is not dangerous… methane is an indicator that other gases are involved, including radon and benzene, both carcinogenic and very dangerous… gas can escape through any perforation in the earth and on the way up to the surface, it can encounter the aquifers underground, where it will leave behind chemicals, including benzene and radon. - Robert Kennedy Jr.
WATCH: Staggering methane leak in California.
[B]enzene and radon [are] the carcinogens that are commonly found in natural gas. - Erin Brockovich.
[R]adon gas, which may potentially be released during repair operations, is also a concern [L.A. County Department of Public Health Interim Director Cynthia Harding] said. - Los Angeles Daily News.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said a new report by county public health officials had concluded that since the gas leak has continued for so long, emissions levels could produce “significant long-term health effects, including cancer.” Antonovich said the report had identified benzene as the “chemical of greatest concern,” because it is known to cause cancer. It also cited concerns about radon, another known carcinogen. - Los Angeles Times.
Public Health Director Cynthia Harding told members of the Board of Supervisors in a Dec. 1 letter [that radon] could also be released as the leak is repaired. - KPCC.
Health officials are also concerned that the company’s attempt to fix the leak by drilling into the ground to construct a relief well could release radon, a radioactive, naturally occurring and odorless gas that is found in geologic formations and causes lung cancer. - Los Angeles Times.
Laura Gideon and her family endured the sickening stench from an out-of-control natural gas leak for about a month before they could no longer tolerate the nausea, headaches and nosebleeds.
After she went to the emergency room in November vomiting and with a severe migraine, Gideon, her husband and their two children abandoned the only home they'd ever known together in the upscale Los Angeles suburb of Porter Ranch.
They moved in with her parents about 10 miles away to await a fix that could still be months away.
"We're in mourning now," she said. "We didn't ever want to leave. We were in a nice gated community. We were safe, you know, supposedly good schools. This wasn't our plan."
Thousands of her neighbors have voluntarily followed suit in an exodus from an invisible threat that wafts occasionally and doesn't sicken everyone in its path, though it continues to spew enormous amounts of climate-changing methane.
The leak has cost the utility $50 million so far and is expected to balloon as the company tries a tricky fix to plug a well deep underground, while also shelling out compensation for exasperated residents and fighting dozens of lawsuits.
Gov. Jerry Brown declared an emergency last week for the prolonged blowout that requires the utility to cover the costs and instructs state regulators to protect ratepayers.
The well is one of 115 in the Santa Susana Mountains where Southern California Gas Co., a division of San Diego-based Sempra Energy, stores natural gas in a vacant oil field about a mile and a half underground. It is the largest natural gas storage facility west of the Mississippi River and can provide energy to all of Southern California for a month.
It has been gushing the equivalent of about a quarter of the state's daily output of methane, along with other gases, since it was reported Oct. 23. It is also blamed for depositing tiny oil droplets on cars and houses that are about a mile away.
The hillside Porter Ranch community of about 30,000 people in mostly single-family homes has grown considerably in the three decades since scenes in the movie "E.T. the Extraterrestrial" were filmed here.
Public health officials said most of the gas is dissipating and not causing long-term problems, though many residents have left because they doubt the air is safe. Foul-smelling additives that make highly flammable gas detectable have been blamed for maladies including irritated throats, coughs and respiratory problems.
"It's like being in a disaster area, but it's not a disaster you can see," said Sue Hammarlund, who has seen her share of national disasters as a Red Cross volunteer and has suffered from headaches and nosebleeds recently. "I think this is more debilitating mentally."
Two local schools nearest the leak closed in December and nearly 1,900 students will start the year at different schools Tuesday.
On Saturday, hundreds of residents crowded into a high school gym to urge air quality regulators who are reviewing a proposal to control the leak to take more aggressive action and shut down the gas storage facility.
While more than 4,500 families have either left or are on the move, many have stayed behind - either because they're not bothered by the smell, aren't worried or don't want to hassle with moving.
Bob Casselman has lived near the entrance to the gas facility 43 years. His wife, Pat, has only noticed the smell a few times and had very few symptoms. The retirees are concerned about the impact on property values, but they're not moving.
"I can't understand all these people," Bob Casselman said. "Everybody wants a freebie ... Unless something's really bad, we don't complain."
The company has apologized for failing to disclose the leak after residents began complaining about the smell and for reacting slowly to their concerns.
The incident is unprecedented for a utility and it is "forging new ground," said Gillian Wright, a SoCalGas vice president.
Under orders from the county health department to relocate people who want to leave, SoCalGas has offered to pay up to $250 a night for hotels, plus $45 per person per day for food, or up to up to $7,500 a month for rental homes. The leak is expected to be stopped in March, but the company has agreed to house people through April.
Some residents have complained about not getting help calls returned and not finding relocation services helpful.
Cheri Derohanian said representatives she spoke with in Chicago and Colorado were useless because they didn't know the lay of the land. One found her a downtown Los Angeles condo that was 30 miles away and better suited for urban hipsters than her family of four.
"We're not a bunch of hicks. We're like Porter Ranch, it's like, you know, the Beverly Hills of the valley," Derohanian said. "We're like BMW people and you're giving us Pinto service."
Many have set out on their own only to lose bidding wars to neighbors or encounter sky-high rents when landlords realize they're gas leak refugees.
Megan Zahedi said she hasn't been helped by the gas company and when she sought housing she found rents doubled to $9,000 a month and houses were snapped up immediately.
"We're not looking for a vacation provided by the gas company," said the single mother, who fears paying a mortgage and additional rent. She feels like a bad parent as her two children suffer from rashes, nausea and headaches, and have been abandoned by their friends.
Down the street in the 1,100-home Porter Ranch Estates, Gideon entered a dark and cold home to pick up a few things Wednesday. She moved here with her college sweetheart 17 years ago. It's where her children took their first steps. The heights of the two are penciled on a wall in the garage.
Everything in the two-story stucco-and-brick house was as they left it seven weeks ago. Portraits and family vacation photos lined walls and shelves. Her husband's UCLA football jersey was framed on the family room wall. Toys and dolls were scattered on her daughter's bedroom floor.
A neighbor who is among those who fear a crime spike in vacant houses called to make sure it was Gideon in the house.
The stench was gone that day. Her 11-year-old daughter, Faith, didn't get a headache and said it felt good to be home - even briefly. Gideon isn't sure what the future holds, but she doesn't plan to return permanently.
"The American dream turned into a bit of disaster for us," she said. "We're not coming back. In my opinion, it would be negligent." - AP.
December 28, 2015 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - In what is being called the worst environmental disaster since the Gulf of Mexico BP oil spill in 2010, methane
gas has been pouring into the air over California's Aliso Canyon, near
Los Angeles, at the rate of approximately 1200 tons each day since
October.
The massive leak is spewing 110,000 pounds of the gas per hour
from a cold-war era energy facility storage. Currently 1,700 homes have
had to be evacuated, and the Southern California Gas Company estimates
that they will not be able to stop the leak until "late February or late
March."
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) released footage taken with an
infrared camera showing massive amounts of the foul smelling gas
billowing from the leak and called it "one of the biggest leaks we've
ever seen reported" and "absolutely uncontained."
WATCH: Aerial footage of Aliso Canyon natural gas leak.
"Our efforts to stop the flow of gas by pumping fluids directly
down the well have not yet been successful, so we have shifted our focus
to stopping the leak through a relief well," Anne Silva, a spokesperson
for the Southern California Gas Company, told Motherboard. "The relief
well process is on schedule to be completed by late February or late
March."
Motherboard reported that the reason for the difficulty is that the well
is some 8,750 feet underground. Attempts at pumping fluids into it have
been unsuccessful. So far, emergency crews have only drilled down to
3,800 feet.
"It's worth noting that the type of gas involved in this leak is part of
what makes it so sinister. Methane, the main component of natural gas,
is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to climate
change impact," Melissa Cronin reported.
As of the end of December, over 150 million pounds of methane have been released in the Aliso Canyon gas leak. - Sputnik News.
December 24, 2015 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - A court ordered SoCal Gas Company to provide temporary housing
for thousands of Porter Ranch, Los Angeles, residents made sick from
fumes from a massive gas leak. An infrared camera captured the size of
the gas plume that's been leaking for two months.
The court order issued on Wednesday will come as a relief to more than 2,500 families in Porter Ranch, a northwest San Fernando Valley community, who have been waiting to be relocated by SoCal Gas since the leak began spewing methane into their homes and schools on October 23.
As of Tuesday, the company had paid for temporary housing for more than 2,000 other households, according to the Los Angeles Times. There are 30,000 residents who live in Porter Ranch, an upscale bedroom community of gated developments where the average 4,000-square-foot home is sold for $1 million.
Judge Emilie Elias directed the gas company to relocate the remaining residents within 24 to 72 hours. The court order follows a restraining order sought by the Los Angeles city attorney that would have required the company to relocate residents within 48 hours of their request, and called for a “special master” to oversee the moves.
The gas company is having increasing difficulty finding alternative housing nearby, because most of the available hotel, motel rooms and rental homes have already been snapped up by relocated Porter Ranch families.The shortage is also sending home rental prices as high as $8,500 a month as landlords, who prefer leases of a year or longer, seek compensation for renting properties for much shorter terms than the three to four months SoCalGas said it needs to cap the damaged well.
WATCH: First Aerial Footage of Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Leak.
New aerial footage of the leak was also released on Wednesday by the Environmental Defense Fund, which captured the intensity of the leak by infrared camera. The video footage shows a steady, thick plume pouring into the air over a densely packed residential area. It is hard to judge the width of the plume from the video, but EDF said it is pumping out 62 million cubic feet of methane into the atmosphere each day. Methane packs 80 times the 20-year warming power of carbon dioxide.
“What you can’t see is easy to ignore. That’s why communities that suffer from pollution from oil and gas development are often dismissed by industry and regulators,” said Earthworks spokesman Alan Septoff in a statement. “Making invisible pollution visible shows the world what people in Porter Ranch have been living with every day for months.”
Trouble began at SoCal gas’ Aliso Canyon, a gas storage field, on October 23, when gas company employees noticed a leak out of the ground near a well called SS-25. Efforts to fix the leak were unsuccessful as gas billowed downhill into Porter Ranch, and customers a mile away began to complain about the smell.
Since then, thousands of complaints of headaches, nausea and nosebleeds have been made to the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
LA Weekly reported that the well was drilled in 1953 and was designed with a sub-surface safety valve 8,451 feet underground. That valve broke and was removed in 1979, but was never replaced. The company says it will take until March for them to drill a relief well to resolve the problem and cap the current well.
“I hate seeing SoCalGas’ pollution billowing over my home and community. Knowing this gas leak has been polluting us since October and won’t stop until March, if then, makes it clear there’s only one way to keep us healthy and safe now and in the future,” said Matt Pakucko, president of Save Porter Ranch in a statement. “[California] Governor [Jerry] Brown needs to shut down the Aliso Canyon facility.”The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that the LA city attorney sued SoCalGas, alleging that the utility failed to prevent the leak and then exacerbated “the effects of that failure by allowing the acute odor and health problems faced by the community to persist for more than one month, to say nothing about the indefinite time it will persist into the future,” according to court papers.
Gas officials could be deposed in that case as soon as January 7, according to the city attorney. The city wants to determine the cause of the leak, the amount of gas released, and the effectiveness of the air infiltration systems being provided by the company, the newspaper reported.
“Events of this size are rare, but major leakage across the oil and gas supply chain is not. There are plenty of mini-Aliso Canyons that add up to a big climate problem – not just in California, but across the country,” said Tim O’Connor, director of Environmental Defense Fund’s California Oil & Gas Program in a statement. “Regardless of what the future holds for the Aliso Canyon storage field, this is one reason why strong rules are needed to require that oil and gas companies closely monitor for and manage methane leaks.” - RT.
December 19, 2015 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - A giant stream of potent climate-warming gas - methane - is blowing
hundreds of feet into the air in Los Angeles County for the seventh
week.
The release cancels out hundreds of smaller efforts over more than a
decade to clamp down on escapes of the gas, a priority because in the
short term, methane is a far more powerful climate-warming gas than
carbon dioxide.
Pilots flying low have been told by the FAA to stay clear of the plume for fear of ignition.
More than 1,800 families have sought relocation due to the vapors.
Southern California Gas Co. officials say it will be months before it can be stopped.
The mainly methane gas is pouring out of the ground near a damaged well
used to inject gas into an old sandstone oil field for storage.
"I think what we are seeing is probably one of the single largest
releases of methane in California history," said Tim O'Connor, who used
to inspect major facilities like refineries for the Bay Area Air Quality
Management District and works for the Environmental Defense Fund.
"People I speak with who are experts in the field say this is biggest, most complex leak that they have ever seen."
Authorities estimate the rupture in the well, perhaps more than a mile
deep, is sending 100,000 pounds of methane into the air per hour.
Methane traps heat more powerfully than carbon dioxide during its
approximately 20-year stay in the atmosphere, giving it an outsize role
in rising sea levels and disrupted weather.
The Aliso Canyon Gas Storage Field, covered with wells, is owned by
Southern California Gas Co., a subsidiary of Sempra Energy, based in San
Diego.
"We have never had an escape this large," said Gillian Wright, vice president for customer services for Southern California Gas.
"I have to really emphasize this is an extremely rare event.
The extent and the difficulty of resolving this leak are highly, highly unusual."
All the methods the company has tried so far to kill the well have failed.
Now experts who fought the Kuwaiti oil field fires have joined the effort.
The safety of the some 100 workers on the site is also a concern.
Wright said that is why on some days, the company cannot perform certain work.
If the wind is blowing methane over certain equipment, crews cannot start that equipment, she said.
As of the weekend, 1,800 families, ill or frightened by sulfurous gas
drifting down from the site, have been relocated from Porter Ranch, paid
for by the gas company.
An additional 1,433 families have asked to be moved, with some still deciding, said Melissa Bailey, a company spokeswoman.
Among those who have left are George Chang and Susan Gorman-Chang.
Gorman-Chang said the first time she felt the full impact of the
unfolding events was midway through her habitual five-mile run, when she
felt the strong smell of gas, or to be precise, an additive intended to
give an odor to the otherwise odorless gas.
With no alternative, she ran through it until she reached home.
"I was really, really dizzy the next morning." she said.
Then on Sunday, Nov. 22 before church, she said, she opened the back door to let the dog out and was sickened by gas.
Now the Changs reside in an extended stay hotel with a mini kitchen, but no oven.
Some of her fellow refugee neighbors are considering getting air
filters, but she has mixed feelings. Several lawsuits have been filed.
Marquee environmental litigators are partnering in the effort.
They liken the release to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
At a gathering Dec. 9 organized by lawyers, they struck at residents' deepest fears.
"Everyone here has suffered a huge property loss," said trial attorney R. Rex Parris.
"The secret is out.
There is a bomb underneath you."
He invited those in attendance to sign up to be represented by counsel.
He also announced he was adding co-counsel, including lawyers who
represented plaintiffs in the BP case and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who in
his remarks called the California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal
Resources a "sock puppet."
Steve Bohlen, the scientist who heads up the agency, said making sure
that Southern California Gas seals the well quickly and appropriately
has "consumed the attention" of his division.
"We have directed them to build a relief well.
We have directed them to prepare a second relief well," he said. But the
oil and gas chief said if the state is too directive, it risks assuming
liability for the consequences.
"This is Southern California Gas' problem to fix," Bohlen stressed.
Some researchers say not enough attention has been paid to to
underground gas storage fields, a mainstay of the natural gas
distribution system, if little known to the average gas customer.
In the western United States these storage areas often consist of older
oil fields where the original production wells have been converted to
injection wells for gas.
Sometimes new injection wells are drilled.
The natural gas is gathered from remote areas, in this case Texas, New Mexico, the Rocky Mountains or Canada.
Pipelines bring it to places like Aliso Canyon where it is compressed
and pushed into formations until it is withdrawn when Southern
Californians fire up their heaters in winter.
Aliso Canyon is the largest such facility on the West Coast, according to Wright.
Withdrawals continue as the gas escapes and in fact the company is
withdrawing gas as quickly as possible to diminish the pressure that is
forcing the gas to escape.
Aliso Canyon can hold 86 billion cubic feet of gas.
"It is the heart of our system in terms of supplying and managing demand," Wright said.
Officials who have focused on reducing methane emissions because of the
impact on Earth's atmosphere have paid more attention to regulations on
pipelines and wells and the other places from which methane escapes.
O'Connor of Environmental Defense Fund said the gas gushing from Aliso
Canyon is roughly equal to that emitted by six coal-fired power plants
or 7 million extra cars.
"I think we have found a regulatory gap," he said.
Officials at both the federal and state level are formulating new rules
for reducing emissions of methane. Underground natural gas storage is
likely to get more scrutiny.
WATCH: New video shot with a highly specialized Optical Gas Imaging camera shows time-lapse image of Southern California Gas Co.'s Aliso Canyon gas leak. Video depicts an ominous cloud of methane gas flowing down from the gas well over the community of Porter Ranch. The video shows the gas cloud at 60x speed.
December 30, 2014 - ARCTIC OCEAN
- Researchers from Norway and Russia have found significant amount of
the greenhouse gas methane is leaking from an area of the Arctic seabed
off the northern coast of Siberia.
According to the team's report in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, the melting of permafrost on the seafloor of the Kara Sea is releasing previously-sequestered methane.
"The thawing of permafrost on the ocean floor is an ongoing process,
likely to be exaggerated by the global warming of the world´s oceans,"
said study author Alexey Portnov at Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate,
Climate and Environment (CAGE) at The Arctic University of Norway.
Permafrost
is considered soil that has been permanently frozen for at least two
years and is usually much thicker on land where temperatures can stay
far below the freezing point for months on end.
"Bottom water
temperature is usually close to or above zero. Theoretically, therefore,
we could never have thick permafrost under the sea," Portnov explained.
He added that 20,000 years ago, during the last ice age, the sea level dropped nearly 400 feet.
"It means that today´s shallow shelf area was land. It was Siberia. And
Siberia was frozen," Portnov said. "The permafrost on the ocean floor
today was established in that period."
When the last ice age
ended around 12,000 years ago, the Kara Sea became submerged by water -
kicking off a slow thaw of the previously-terrestrial permafrost. While
previous research has shown that this permafrost extends down around 330
feet, the new study has found evidence of methane leaking from much
shallower depths - between 66 and 100 feet.
"The permafrost is
thawing from two sides," Portnov said. "The interior of the Earth is
warm and is warming the permafrost from the bottom up. It is called
geothermal heat flux and it is happening all the time, regardless of human influence."
Using mathematical models based on expected conditions, the study team
concluded that the maximal possible permafrost thickness would take
around 9000 years to thaw. If Arctic Ocean temperatures were to increase
due to global warming, the process would accelerate, the researchers
noted.
"If the temperature of the oceans increases by two
degrees as suggested by some reports, it will accelerate the thawing to
the extreme," Portnov said. "A warming climate could lead to an
explosive gas release from the shallow areas."
In addition to
containing methane in seafloor sediments, permafrost also serves to
stabilize ice-like structures called gas hydrates that form under high
pressure and low temperatures.
"Gas hydrates normally form in
water depths over 300 meters (980 feet), because they depend on high
pressure," Portnov said. "But under permafrost the gas hydrate may stay
stable even where the pressure is not that high, because of the
constantly low temperatures."
Gas hydrates typically contain
large volumes of gas and their release would generate massive sinkholes
like those currently being formed by melting permafrost on the Siberian
mainland. - Red Orbit.
May 28, 2014 - CHINA- Methane gas is coming up from the ground in a village in China causing the air to burst into balls of fire.
Dangerous: Methane gas is coming up from the ground in a village in China causing the air to burst into fire
The phenomenon is now so common that Nanjiawan village in south-west China has been dubbed the 'Invisible Fire Village'.
Lighting a cigarette or starting electrical equipment can have disastrous consequences.
Superstitious locals called in priests at first believing they had been cursed by evil spirits.
After that failed to drive away the methane gas explosions some of the
more enterprising villagers dug tunnels under their homes and used the
gas to create basic underfloor heating systems.
The gas was discovered less than a year ago when Su Geng, 83, reported to authorities a strange smell coming from her cellar.
She said: 'They told me after doing a test that there was methane
leaking out of the ground. They set fire to the air to prove it to me.'
Methane secreting from the ground occurs in many places around the world.
Villagers need to be careful when working in the
fields because even a single spark from a metal farming tool striking a
stone can cause the air to literally burst into flames
Some of the more creative villagers dug tunnels under their homes and used the gas to create basic underfloor heating systems
The gas was discovered less than a year ago when an 83-year-old woman noticed a strange smell coming from her cellar
On one hillside on Turkey's Mediterranean coast fires have been burning for thousands of years.
However, families in China are afraid that the 'Invisible Fire' will one day burn out of control and lead to deaths.
A police spokesman said: 'It doesn't matter how often they are told that
it is an explainable natural phenomenon, there are many who view it as a
sinister thing and insist that it evil spirits and other hocus pocus is
at play.
'In fact the most logical explanation is staring them in the face every
day. There is a natural gas mine not far from the village.
'It's likely that the gas leaks and goes underground to the village,
causing the fires there. It is not witchcraft or sorcery but simple
natural science.'
- Daily Mail.
October 29, 2013 - SPAIN - A mining disaster in Spain has left six people dead and five others in hospital.
Santa Lucia mine: The gas spread so quickly 700 metres underground that miners had no time to
put on protective masks, officials said. Photo: Getty Images
Grieving families: It was reported that most of the victims were in their thirties. Photo: AFP
There was no explosion. It is thought victims were overcome by methane gas after a leak at the pit in the northwest of the country.
Distraught friends and family gathered at the site in Santa Lucia near the city of Leon.
WATCH: Six killed in gas leak at coal mine in Spain.
Media reports suggest the victims were employees of a subcontractor working at the nearly 700 metre deep privately-owned pit.
It is the latest devastating blow to Spain’s struggling coal mining industry. Last year, miners went on strike in protest at the reduction of state subsidies, amid the government’s austerity programme. - Euro News.
