Gas Leak a Catastrophe Not Seen Since the BP Oil Spill

Yeah, methane, Fukushima, oil spills, coal pollution, cut down the rain forests, pollute the freshwater sources, damn the Earth and keep them profits coming in, free energy ideas like Tesla's and others can stay suppressed until the last dollar is made. Must be nice to be wealthy enough not to live near their own messes or move away from them altogether.

In the 1970s, we talked about "pollution" and ended up with the EPA. While some would like to see an impotent EPA (govt overreach, let industry regulate itself, burdensome regulations, etc) or have it used to favor the very industries it is supposed to regulate, the new generation must demand the EPA work better, not simply scrap it. Anyway, we assumed pollution was now under control.

It is not! Instead of focusing on pollution, we have been made to focus on "global warming" and "climate change", which bogged everyone down into debate. Meanwhile the reality of pollution persisted and grew. Whether or not one could see it or smell it....think Fukushima!

We need to bring the narrative back to pollution. For that word, there is no debate.


a reply to: AmericanRealist
If I understood it correctly, this well did not tap into the methane. It was an old oil well that was being used to store the methane shipped via pipeline from sources in the midwest. Again, if I understood it correctly, this well should not have been used for this; and, nonetheless, the safety valve had been removed and not replaced.

But this catastrophe surely does dispell any notions that handling such fossil fuels is somehow safe and that "safety is number #1".

a reply to: AmericanRealist Thanks for embed!
a reply to: jadedANDcynical A picture truly is worth a thousand words!

I just wanted to give this thread a bump.

It seems to me, that this is a very dangerous situation. A plane flying thru this could spark an explosion.

I found this article and thought some might be interested. I didn't see anyone else post it.

This is an interview with Brockovich and residents.

www.democracynow.org...

a reply to: crappiekat

Found another interesting article about this situation.

www.dailynews.com...

There is also an interesting comment down at the bottom of the page.

It seems to me that the best thing to do would be to shut this down completely until they have fixed the issues.

This could just get worse.

I'm no expert but would it not be better if they set light to the escaping gas and let it burn off rather than have it escape into the atmosphere. The close vicinity of the leak must be in a flammable state.

Too bad they didn't get a real production company to drill the relief well. We have a few in Texas.

News talked about consideration of flaring the gas.

Shades of the Devil's cigarette lighter.

The Devil's Cigarette Lighter was a natural gas well fire at Gassi Touil in the Sahara Desert of Algeria. Ignited when a pipe ruptured on November 6, 1961, the Phillips Petroleum Company-owned well produced more than 6,000 cubic feet (170 m3) of natural gas per second, whose flame rose between 450 feet (140 m) and 800 feet (240 m).

The flame was seen from orbit by John Glenn during the flight of Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. The blowout and fire were estimated to have consumed enough gas to supply Paris for three months, burning 550,000,000 cubic feet (16,000,000 m3) per day.

After burning almost six months, the fire was extinguished by well fire expert Red Adair, who used explosives to deprive the flame of oxygen. The exploit made Adair a celebrity.

If the data and my calcs are correct, this a bit over 10% of the Devil's rate.

Not a whole lot new about this, but I did want to post this and give the thread a bump.

I feel horrible for the thousands of families displaced because of this. And of course, those that bear the brunt of the responsibility are doing everything possible to avoid any sort of consequence.

“This is a mini-Chernobyl,” Mike Antonovich, the LA county supervisor, told a public hearing at the weekend.

And while somewhat comparable in scope, the difference is that with the gas leak, once it is fixed, the residents will be able to return to their homes whereas the area surrounding Chernobyl are still, and will remain for quite some time, uninhabitable by humans.

They do plan on siphoning off some of the escaping gas to try and recapture some of the odorant and other volatile compounds, but they don't say how much of the flow they will intercept. It would have to be a significant percentage to have any appreciable affect upon the overall damage to the environment.

Are they covering up how damaging this is or could be?

Seth Shonkoff, the director of the PSE Healthy Energy thinktank, said some of the monitoring equipment deployed by the company was not capable of detecting the foul-smelling chemicals, or mercaptans, that are the cause of headaches and nausea among Porter Ranch residents.

He said the equipment used by SoCalGas was capable of detecting the chemical at concentrations at 5 parts per billion – while the human nose is sensitive to mercaptan at much smaller concentrations of 0.1 parts per billion. “Everyone can smell it. The people who are sensitive to it are getting sick. But if they are monitoring with equipment that has a limit of 5 parts per billion it will show up as a non-detect,” Shonkoff said. “It is clear that data is not being collected in a manner that is necessary to determine the extent to which there may be public health concerns.”

So because their equipment doesn't detect the contaminant, then they can say there isn't anythign present which could harm the people in the area. Slick bastards.

California gas company promises action to capture some of leaking methane

No flaring of gas

On Saturday, regulators in California decided to hold off on a plan to capture and burn the natural gas that is leaking from a broken storage well just north of Los Angeles, citing the risk of a “catastrophic explosion,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

That decision came after the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) criticized the plan, which involved capturing gas at the leak site with a 3-foot-wide pipe and burning the gas off at a distance from the wellhead. Instead, the PUC said, SoCal Gas’ earlier attempts to plug the leak by pumping slurry into the wellhead weakened it to the point where a misstep in installing the 3-foot-wide pipe could cause a blowout to occur, which could cause the pressurized gas to vent directly into the atmosphere instead of diffusing through several areas in the ground, as it is doing now.

This is a mess. The wellhead is fubared and...

As the Los Angeles Times reported last week, SoCal Gas’ earlier attempts at plugging the leak by pumping slurry into the wellhead created a 25-foot-deep ditch around the site. "The wellhead sits exposed within the cavernous space, held in place with cables attached after it wobbled during the plugging attempt,” the Times wrote. That precarious wellhead is a last defense against the unfettered venting of a lot of pressurized gas.

Link

a reply to: roadgravel

so..... we're all screwed as I suspected?? What a damn shame. Any indications on just how catastrophically large such an explosion would be?? I knew from the get go this incident would be absolutely FUBAR. This thing has to be affecting local and regional weather patterns by now right due to the greenhouse effect of this gas??

a reply to: AmericanRealist

This thing has to be affecting local and regional weather patterns by now right due to the greenhouse effect of this gas??

I have no idea but it seems unlikely to me it has a wide spread weather effect at this point. Looks like it is hope that it stays intact another month.

I saw a small blowout near my place years back. Pretty wild. I suspect this one would be a much wilder ride.

It just seems to me the best thing they can do is shut this down completely.


Good article. Thanks for posting.



But I guess that would be really expensive.

a reply to: roadgravel

i've been meaning to get back to this thread. Read your source. .... “catastrophic explosion"....What a mess!!

SoCalGas probably doesn't want to, but I wonder if they can just start drawing down all the gas in the field.

I heard about this

“We need to draw down all natural gas in the Aliso Canyon facility to zero – we need to deplete both the working gas and the cushion gas,” he told Brown. “It is simply wrong to limit withdrawals of gas from the facility that can be sold in the ordinary course of business, or stored in other SoCalGas facilities.

“Failure to withdraw natural gas from Aliso Canyon as quickly as the infrastructure will allow creates unnecessary threats to public health and the environment.”

It's their biggest storage and, if IRC, the second largest in the US.

I bet they couldn't move all of it if they want to do it.

edit:

Guess it doesn't matter. What leaks, leaks unless it is never plugged.

Well it looks like the local and sate government will be pressing charges, albeit pathetically weak ones.

California methane leak leads to criminal charges

Los Angeles prosecutors filed misdemeanor criminal charges Tuesday against a utility for failing to immediately report a natural gas leak that has been gushing nonstop for nearly 15 weeks.

District Attorney Jackie Lacey said the charges aren't a solution to the problem, but Southern California Gas Co. needs to be held responsible for the leak that has uprooted more than 4,400 families.

The charges came the same day the state attorney general joined a long line of others in suing the gas company for the blowout that has spewed more than 1.8 million tonnes of climate-changing methane since October.

The criminal complaint charges the company with three counts of failing to report the release of a hazardous material and one count of discharge of air contaminants.

The company said in a statement that it will vigorously defend itself in court. Arraignment is scheduled Feb. 17.

If convicted, the company could be fined up to $1,000 US per day for air pollution violations and up to $25,000 for each of the three days it didn't notify the state Office of Emergency Services of the leak.

It is also facing more than two dozen lawsuits — including potential class-actions from residents and businesses over the leak as well as from regional air regulators and city and county authorities.

also
California methane leak impact zone doubles in size

100 Days and Counting

Well intercepted and heavy fluids now suppressing flow of gas.

"On Feb. 11, 2016, the relief well intercepted the base of the leaking well, and the company began pumping heavy fluids to temporarily control the flow of gas out of the leaking well,” a statement from SoCal Gas read. "DOGGR [California’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources] officials and representatives from other state and local agencies were at the site to observe the operation. The leak and the flow of gas will be declared ended once DOGGR has confirmed that the well has been permanently sealed."

The company will now have to seal the well with cement to permanently shut it down, a process that could take a few more days. Once that occurs, the thousands of displaced residents who lived in the nearby Porter Ranch community will have eight days to return to their homes, at which point SoCal Gas will terminate the leases on temporary housing that the company has been paying for.

Link

Southern California Gas Co. Pleads Innocent in Methane Leak

Southern California Gas Co pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to criminal charges it waited three days to report a huge methane leak that has forced thousands of Los Angeles residents from their homes, officials for the company and prosecutors said.

During an arraignment in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Santa Clarita, attorneys for SoCal Gas also entered a not guilty plea to the additional misdemeanor count of illegally discharging air contaminants, the officials said.

The criminal case against SoCal Gas was filed on Feb. 2, the same day California’s attorney general filed a lawsuit expanding a civil complaint previously brought against the utility by city and county prosecutors. SoCal Gas also faces a slew of private lawsuits filed on behalf of area residents.

The next court date in the criminal case is scheduled for April 19, Robison said.

Plus, two activists were just arrested at California Public Utilities Commision

The California State Patrol has arrested two people in connection with the massive methane leak in Southern California’s Aliso Canyon, but many residents who had to leave their homes near the leaking underground gas storage site think the wrong people are in custody. Instead of busting company executives and engineers who are responsible for the massive methane gas leak, the CSP arrested two protesters who draped banners on the headquarters of the California Public Utilities Commission. The protesters draped banners to highlight the lax regulatory environment that enabled the spill — similar to the political culture that enabled the water poisoning in Flint. But unbelievably, the activists are now the ones going to jail.

The protest at the California PUC headquarters was organized by Diablo Rising Tide, the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of Rising Tide North America.
The protest came as Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz visited the facility, and the gas leak highlights the vulnerability of similar storage facilites around the country, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“It is unconscionable that these regulators are putting people at risk while giving companies a pass. The last time Aliso Canyon was inspected by the PUC was the last time Jerry Brown was governor,“ said Kelsey Baker, one of the activists at the PUC headquarters.

I would like there to be a witch hunt on the executives and PUC.