By DAILY NEWS July 31, 2017
Quake and fire risks make Aliso Canyon gas facility dangerous: Letters
Re “Aliso Canyon deemed safe to reopen with limited natural gas injections, state says” (July 19): I disagree with the decision by the state Department of Conservation’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, the California Public Utilities Commission and Gov. Jerry Brown to allow the Aliso Canyon facility to reopen.
Several earthquake faults run through Aliso, including one directly below the wells. In addition, it’s considered a high fire-danger zone, with several fires occurring on the Southern California Gas Co.’s property. Did the gas company set up some magical wall that protects its facility from fires and earthquakes?
Did it place safety valves in all the wells and stopped the daily methane leaks that are still happening? Has it released a comprehensive list of materials used, including cancer-causing toxic chemicals? Has a root-cause analysis been completed into the disastrous blowout?
The answer to each question is no. About 1.5 million residents will be at risk when the next major quake or brushfire hits Aliso Canyon. We can’t afford to wait 10 years before the state shuts it down.
— Patty Glueck, Porter Ranch
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Daily News August 1, 2017
Aliso Canyon natural-gas facility should remain closed: Letters
Re “Aliso Canyon deemed safe to reopen with limited natural gas injections, state says” (July 19):
Multiple government agencies, elected officials and consultants — not “activists” — all say Aliso Canyon needs to stay shut down either until the cause of the blowout is disclosed, or permanently.
Among those non-activists are: the Los Angeles County Fire Department, the Los Angeles Unified School District, state Sen. Henry Stern, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Brad Sherman, L.A. City Councilman Mitch Englander, several university consultants, and more.
Because of earthquake risk (unstudied), no required emergency response plan, no emergency shutoff valves, and the chemicals released (all of them) have not been disclosed.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, with the panel of health experts assembled by the South Coast Air Quality Management District board, says there is a problem that needs a $35 million to $40 million health study to identify.
And the simple fact that Aliso Canyon has not been required for gas for the L.A. Basin since January 2016 — 18 months — and it is not even needed!
— Matt Pakucko, Porter Ranch The letter writer is president and co-founder of Save Porter Ranch, Inc.
Daily News 5/31/17
Study of earthquake risk needed at Aliso Canyon
There’s a bigger question at the Aliso Canyon gas storage field than the cause of the massive methane leak: What’s the risk of movement on the Santa Susana earthquake fault that intersects all the wells in the subsurface? Technical reports on this hazard are available at: geologicmapsfoundation.org/publications.html.
Rupture along this fault could instantaneously damage many wells. Its high-fault-displacement rate during recent geologic time probably means frequent, large earthquakes relative to other faults.
Accordingly, state law bans schools or habitable structures over the fault. Federal regulation requires gas pipelines to mitigate similar fault crossings at the surface but, oddly, not subsurface well crossings.
Until recently, there’s been little recognition of the subsurface fault risk to gas storage wells. Do we really understand the potential negative impacts of a storage field across an earthquake fault?
Additional state and federal regulatory constraints are justified that require a truly independent risk assessment before the state considers reinjection of methane at Aliso Canyon.
— Thomas L. Davis, Ventura The letter writer is director of Geologic Maps Foundation, Inc.
Santa Clarita Gazette and Free Press August 31, 2017
Reply to “Steve Knight on the Gas Leak”
Steve Knight’s comments regarding the resumption of activity at the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility shows that he didn’t do his homework. And that should be a concern for anyone living in the Santa Clarita and San Fernando Valleys.
First, DOGGR’s decision that the facility is now “safe” is not based on reality. As stated in this article James Mansdorfer did tell his higher ups at SoCalGas back in 2009 that a quake erupting on the Santa Susana fault, which transverses each of the wells at the site, will be catastrophic. But many geologists have told DOGGR this in written and oral testimony at the beginning of the year. The Los Angeles County Fire Department expressed deep concerns about seismic and fire dangers at the site, and also noted that the SoCalGas risk plan was vastly inadequate, not site-specific, and out of date.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has placed the area affected by the 2015 blowout as a 12-mile radius from the damaged well, based on the health complaints it had received. This area includes the southern part of the Santa Clarita Valley as well as much of the western and northern San Fernando Valley. That’s some 1.5 million residents!
At the elementary school that’s located less than two miles away from the site, six teachers had been diagnosed with cancer. The teacher who passed away in May had died from bladder cancer, which is often caused by exposure to toxic chemicals. A local resident died in July from renal cancer, another cancer often attributed to exposure to toxic chemicals. A seven-year-old girl was diagnosed last year with acute myeloid leukemia, a form of cancer that is also often caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, and, in addition, is rarely seen in non-adults. The area surrounding Aliso Canyon is becoming a cancer zone, yet Steve Knight isn’t addressing that issue. Why not?
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Instead, he has bought into the SoCalGas blackout blackmail. If Steve Knight has done his homework, he would have read the many engineering reports, including the one commissioned by the county, that have concluded Aliso Canyon’s gas is NOT needed for energy reliability. Instead he says “the public needs to have faith in the government’s system of checks and balances.” Yet, where are the checks and balances in this matter when the CPUC alone has the authority to make a decision that is based on ignoring the health and safety of 1.5 million residents? Shouldn’t health and safety be a higher priority than having a potentially dangerous receptacle of gas, whose primary function is to enrich the Sempra management? And considering that SoCalGas hasn’t even bothered to include subsurface safety valves in its wells, you have to wonder how safety is a priority. Aliso Canyon’s facility can’t be considered safe unless SoCalGas has figured out a way to build a magic wall surrounding its storage site that will contain any more blowouts that are a strong likelihood in the future.
-Patty Glueck