Order to Keep Gas in Leaking Facility Angers Porter Ranch Residents

"Congressman, environmentalists say California regulators endangered public health in telling SoCal Gas to maintain supplies for heating, electricity."

"Fearing a depletion of its emergency fuel reserve California regulators ordered Southern California Gas Co. to stop pumping all natural gas out of its Aliso Canyon storage facility, the main way it has been reducing the amount of methane escaping from a ruptured well.

The drawdown has lowered the volume of leaking gas by 68 percent since emissions peaked Nov. 28, according to the California Air Resources Board, but regulators are now worried the effort might be tapping too much of Los Angeles’ emergency natural gas reserves. The leak has blown 4.8 billion cubic feet of natural gas into the atmosphere since it was detected Oct. 23, according to state regulators, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, whose district includes a portion of the Porter Ranch neighborhood in northwest LA, said the regulators’ top priority should be stopping the leak.

“There is only one thing that has been successful or partially successful so far, and that is SoCal Gas has drained the facility down to about 25 billion cubic feet of working gas,” Sherman said at a Porter Ranch town hall meeting Friday. "Efforts to reduce the pressure and reduce the leak are [now] going to stop. Not only is that an outrage for anybody who breathes air in the North San Fernando Valley, it is also a violation of the governor’s emergency order.”"

Phil McKenna reports for InsideClimate News January 26, 2016.