Environmental Disaster Happening In California Nobody Cares

[NeonLX]

bigger than BP oil spill in the Gulf...I thought it needed it's own thread and I searched and didn't find an OP on it

I'm glad you posted it. I hate to admit it, but I read about this several days ago but didn't react to it. I think I "liked" somebody's post about this on Facebook. Or something equally pointless.

This horrendous leak may be the final straw; I don't know.

Worse, I don't know what I can do.

[seemslikeadream]

The Company Behind LA's Methane Disaster Knew Its Well Was Leaking 24 Years Ago
Tyler Durden's pictureSubmitted by Tyler Durden on 01/12/2016 14:40 -0500

Geothermal Natural Gas Testimony

Authored by Melissa Cronin, originally posted at MotherBoard,

Last fall, a 7-inch injection well pipe ruptured 500 feet below the surface of Los Angeles, after ferrying natural gas for six decades. The resulting methane leak is now being called one of the largest environmental disasters since the BP oil spill, has pushed thousands of people out of their homes, and has quickly become the single biggest contributor to climate change-causing greenhouse gas emissions in California. But it's not the first time this well sprang a leak—and Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas), which owns and operates the well, knew it.

Over the past three months, engineers have had a terrifically difficult time plugging the leak. Normally in the case of a methane leak, a column of fluid would be pumped down into the well, to stem its tide. But with this particular well, that hasn’t been working. Instead, workers must drill down to the base of the well, 8,000 feet underground, creating a relief well to relieve the incredibly high pressure of the leak. Only then can the leak be repaired safely.

So who’s to blame for a leak that cannot be stopped? Aging natural gas equipment may have contributed. According to documents filed with the California Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources, this particular well, referred to as Standard Sesnon 25, was originally drilled in 1953, and showed signs of leakage 24 years ago, in 1992. Inspectors reported that they could hear the leak through borehole microphones.



Gene Nelson, a professor of physical science at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, California who has seen the document, said that he found it “appalling that SoCalGas did not identify this as a well to shut off,” after receiving this feedback.

There have been other problems documented at this facility before. And in 2014, inspectors at the wells documented corrosion and negative integrity trends.

In 2013, SoCalGas applied for and received money to do upgrades on equipment like safety valves—money that the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) says should have been used to prevent a leak like this. The regulatory decision filing shows that SoCalGas was granted $898,000 per year (in addition to the regular fund of about $3 million per year for repairs) to replace 5 percent of its safety valves at Aliso Canyon. According to EDF, these extra funds weren’t used as they should have been—to prevent a leak of this magnitude.

In 2014, written testimony to the California Public Utilities Commission by SoCalGas Director of Storage Operations Phillip Baker documented corrosion and negative integrity trends in the aging pipeline.

“Without a new inspection plan, SoCalGas and customers could experience major failures and service interruptions from potential hazards that currently remain undetected,” he wrote. The filing also noted that as of 2014, half of the company’s 229 storage wells were over 57 years old, and 52 wells were more than 70 years old.

“The company should be holding themselves to highest standard of care,” said Tim O’Connor, Director of California oil and gas for EDF, adding that SoCal should have had emergency plans in place to prevent long-term leaks from occurring. “This leak is a symptom of a larger issue—aging oil and gas infrastructure. We just don’t have a system to properly deal with storage leaks yet.”
Other safety issues have been pointed out recently, too. Earlier this month, The LA Times reported that attorneys representing some of the 1,000 residents suing SoCalGas over the leak claim the company failed to replace an important safety valve that was removed in 1979—a valve that could have stopped the current leak in its tracks. The plaintiffs also allege that the company again identified leaks at the site five years ago, but never implemented plans to fix them.

When pressed about the age of the pipes and the safety history of the well, a spokesperson for Sempra Utilities, the company that owns SoCalGas, said that the company performs daily well checks, and that this well had passed its last inspection:

Over time, the technology to monitor and operate underground gas storage field has developed steadily, and our facilities are at the forefront of safety controls and procedures. In addition, all our operations are closely monitored for compliance with the safety standards of the California Public Utilities Commission, the Division of Oil and Gas, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and local fire departments.
Now, three months after the pipe first burst, Gov. Jerry Brown has proclaimed a state of emergency in California. The declaration grants the state more powers to oversee the response, gives more authority to health officials, forces the utility to maximize its gas withdrawals, and ramps up safety inspections at the Aliso Canyon Underground Storage Facility in Porter Ranch—a neighborhood of Los Angeles where over 100,000 pounds of methane are now being pumped into California’s air every hour. The proclamation will likely allow more funds to be diverted to assist in cleanup efforts, and creates an independent panel to assess what went wrong with the leak and to assess its impact on human health.



Leak site. Image: Earthworks

Dennis Arriola, president and CEO of the Southern California Gas Company, which owns the Aliso facility, issued a statement saying that the company “has been communicating with the Governor’s Office and other state agencies from the outset….[and] reaffirms our prior commitment to mitigate the environmental impact of the actual amount of natural gas released from the leak.”

Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University and an expert in the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions, called the Porter Ranch leak “spectacularly large,” adding that it is likely adding 5 percent to the total amount of methane leaked by the entire US oil and gas industry right now. (Natural gas consists primarily of methane, which constantly leaks, in much smaller amounts, from oil and gas fields around the nation.) What’s more, says Howarth, the methane is incredibly sticky—meaning, it’s going to stay in the atmosphere.





“Once the methane is in the air, it will be there for 10-plus years until it is chemically converted to carbon dioxide and methane,” said Howarth. “ We cannot do anything about that to speed its loss up. And during those 10-plus years, it is more than 100 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide.”

In other words, the methane coming out of this leak is catastrophically worse for the climate than the pollution we pump into the atmosphere from cars and planes and trains every day.

So far, some 2,300 homes have voluntarily evacuated and several schools have been closed, with many residents complaining of headaches and nosebleeds from the foul-smelling chemical additives. These include radon, hydrogen sulfide, and an odorant called mercaptan, which is added to the gas both before and after it leaves the storage field.

The well, which funnels natural gas to 22 million customers in the Los Angeles Basin, is expected to take another three months to plug. O’Connor says that the disaster is a telling sign about the viability of natural gas in a country of aging infrastructure.

“We need to take a hard look at whether we can prevent these types of leaks,” he said, adding that smaller methane leaks at oil and gas facilities happen frequently. “These problems fly below the radar until catastrophes happen—and a catastrophe has just happened.”

[NeonLX]

HAW!! Sounds like things are well in hand. I don't give a shit about the pun, either.

[Novem5er]

Is it ironic, given the thread title, that nobody had responded yet?

I'm teasing, but only a little.

When this story broke, for me, it was another sign of disgust at our environmental protections, but I also felt entirely helpless and I didn't dig into more detail like I do for other stories. I've always considered myself a conservationist, if not an environmentalist, but I find myself feeling more defeated by news like this than I feel angered. I was angry for too many years over too many stories. Now I'm just kind of numb about it.

But it is an incredible and important story, so I was glad it was posted so I could encounter it again. Thank you.

I guess I should have put the title in all capital letters at least I know I would have gotten one really quick reply......I'm teasing, but only a little


just to be clear this really is not a reply to Novem5er ....she/he just got caught in the hissy fit crosshairs

Oh, family tiffs . . .

I do like the idea of lighting this gas geyser up in flames; consequences be damned. It'de be the biggest ass-on-fire joke ever.

[Novem5er]

Is it ironic, given the thread title, that nobody had responded yet?

I'm teasing, but only a little.

When this story broke, for me, it was another sign of disgust at our environmental protections, but I also felt entirely helpless and I didn't dig into more detail like I do for other stories. I've always considered myself a conservationist, if not an environmentalist, but I find myself feeling more defeated by news like this than I feel angered. I was angry for too many years over too many stories. Now I'm just kind of numb about it.

But it is an incredible and important story, so I was glad it was posted so I could encounter it again. Thank you.

It was only because we had a preexisting thread on it that had covered the leak. I've posted about it since but decided to put mine in the methane thread since there were more replies and views.

I did see the Methane Thread and this certainly fits inside it. It's also a big enough environmental story that a thread of its own feels legit. The Methane Thread is great because it shows that there are many other issues with methane out there; this one is just perhaps the largest.

I think there are a few reasons that the wider population isn't obsessed with this story. One is exhaustion from environmental disasters that they can't actually fix. Another is that this is an invisible problem; there are no giant blobs of brown goo floating around. not sea birds covered in slime, and nothing washing up on the shores of tourist beaches. To be clear, there are adverse effects from this latest pollution, but it doesn't make for very good television.

For myself, the first article I read about it explained mostly how this leak would contribute to global warming, methane being one of the worst greenhouse gasses. While I didn't doubt it, to me it was like adding another papercut to an already mangled limb.

[Nordic]

It's gonna be really difficult for me to write that next check to So Cal Gas for the minuscule amount of gas I've used. When they're blasting all of this into the atmosphere, free of charge.

[Novem5er]

It's gonna be really difficult for me to write that next check to So Cal Gas for the minuscule amount of gas I've used. When they're blasting all of this into the atmosphere, free of charge.

No joke! People should be lining up with empty plastic bags to catch some of that free gas. Wait - I think I just solved the crisis right there.

[Iamwhomiam]

Trust me, you are paying for it, Nordic.

[LolaB]

Here's a nifty graphic of some recent test results;
http://www.heetma.org/squeaky-leak/porter-ranch-gas-leak/

I drove by there last week and stopped at one of these huge shopping centers in the area. Business seemed pretty much going as usual at Joann's fabric store. Then I chatted up the lady next to me in line. Casually inquired if she was local and how she felt about the leak. She wasn't, but started wheezing with asthma right there and then. Outside in the parking lot the air only had a very faint whiff of funk in it. I kept going but had red irritated eyes and a bit of nosebleed that afternoon. Caveat: could have been psychosomatic.

[fruhmenschen]

http://robertscribbler.com/



A Terrifying Jump in Global Temperatures — December of 2015 at 1.4 C Above 1890

A monster El Nino firing off in the Pacific. A massive fossil fuel driven accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere pushing CO2 levels well above 400 parts per million. The contribution of other greenhouse gasses pushing the total global heat forcing into the range of 485 parts per million CO2e. Given this stark context, we knew the numbers were probably going to be bad. We just didn’t know how bad. And, looking at the initial measures coming in, we can definitely say that this is serious.

According to today’s report from Japan’s Meteorological Agency, global temperatures jumped by a ridiculous 0.36 degrees Celsius from the period of December 2014 — the previous hottest December in the global climate record — through December 2015 — the new hottest December by one heck of a long shot. To put such an amazing year-on-year monthly jump in global temperatures into context, the average decadal rate of global temperature increase has been in the range of 0.15 C every ten years for the past three and a half decades. It’s as if you lumped 20 years of human forced warming all into one 12 month differential.

December 2015 Global Temperature Record Hottest Month

(Japan’s Meteorological Agency shows a terrifyingly sharp jump in global temperatures for the month of December, 2015. Image Source: JMA.)

Taking a look at this amazing monthly jump in global temperatures in terms of longer timeframes, we find that December of 2015 came in at 1.05 C above the 20th Century Average and a terrifying (yes, no other word can describe) 1.42 C departure from average temperatures at the start of the record during 1890.

The world is now exploring monthly global temperature averages that are hitting very close to a dangerous 1.5 C above preindustrial levels. And though these numbers do not reflect yearly averages that will probably be much lower — in the range of 1 to 1.2 C above 1880 for 2015 and 2016 — we should be very clear that such high readings remain cause for serious concern. Concern for the potential that 2016 may also see continued new record hot annual temperatures on top of previous record hot years 2014 and and 2015. And concern that we may well be just one more strong El Nino away from breaking through or coming dangerously close to the 1.5 C annual average temperature threshold.

There is cause here for concern and there is certainly some cause for alarm. Alarm in the sense that the world really needs to be ever-more serious about reducing global fossil fuel emissions to near zero as rapidly as possible. Otherwise, we might well break 2 C — not before 2100, but before 2050.

Links:

Japan Meteorological Agency Global Temperature Analysis

(NASA and NOAA Analysis to soon foll

[Luther Blissett]

The LA Gas Leak Is Scarier Than We Thought

Since a gas leak erupted outside LA on October 23rd, over 83,000 metric tons of methane have escaped to the atmosphere, prompting public officials to evacuate the neighboring community of Porter Ranch. But as a disturbing new analysis shows, a much broader swath of LA is now drowning in methane.

The Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET) is a Cambridge-based nonprofit that’s been shedding light on leaky natural gas infrastructure for years. Last week, HEET sent Boston University Professor Nathan Phillips and Bob Ackley of Gas Safety out to LA to measure pollution in the air surrounding Porter Ranch.

Armed with a laser gas analyzer that can sniff out airborne methane with parts-per-billion precision, Phillips and Ackley drove around the LA area measuring methane concentrations for a period of five days. Every time their analyzer detected elevated gas levels, it plotted the numbers to Google Earth. The red bars on their maps indicate where they drove, with higher bars corresponding to higher methane concentrations.

While California’s Air and Resources Board has been keeping tabs on the air quality directly above the ruptured well, HEET’s analysis went further, revealing elevated methane levels up to eight miles from the storage site. In a relatively unpolluted area like HEET’s hometown Cambridge, methane concentrations will typically fall between 1.85 and 1.95 ppm. In the region surrounding the Porter Ranch leak, concentrations of the invisible pollutant are two to up to 67 times higher.

This shouldn’t exactly come as a surprise—after all, we’re talking one of the largest methane leaks in history here—but the new data may put added pressure on SoCalGas to expand the gas leak relocation area. So far, the gas company has evacuated over 2,000 residents living within a mile of the leak, who have reported dizziness, nausea, fatigue and other symptoms. Yesterday, Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander called on SoCalGas to extend relocation to adjacent areas in the San Fernando valley.

The rate of methane leakage from the well has been steadily falling since late November, but SoCalGas says it could take until late February or March for the well to be plugged. The company is in the process drilling a relief well and plans to inject tons of concrete into the ground to seal it—sort of like filling an 8,000 foot cavity. In the meantime, methane is sure to continue its slow creep across the city.

[Iamwhomiam]

And right on time for the coming weather inversions that fill the valley with smog. Talk about LA being ready to explode!

What develops should be interesting. Capping the well could be unsuccessful. Has the area also been fracked (horizontally drilled)? Lots of rabbit holes for the gas to wander through.

They should "Light it up."

[Elvis]

Time for those citizen tribunals in the U.S.

[Iamwhomiam]

I suppose the only thing I might possibly have in common with Bundy, would be that I would like to see all the natural resources of the USA become nationalized - given back to the people. OK, taken back by the people.

[Burnt Hill]

Experts: Multiple types of radioactive material constantly being emitted from LA gas blowout — “I’d be running like hell” — “We are getting higher and higher levels…it’s accumulating” — “Poisons spreading through entire San Fernando Valley” home to 2 million people — “Thousands getting sick… it really is a major, major disaster”
Published: January 14th, 2016 at 5:02 pm ET

http://enenews.com/experts-multiple-types-radioactive-material-being-continuously-emitted-la-gas-blowout-accumulating-getting-higher-higher-levels-poisons-all-moving-down-spreading-entire-san-fernando-valley-th

Follow up to: Radioactive material reportedly now being released from massive gas blowout in LA — Byproduct of Uranium — Expert: “A lot” has been detected… Very dangerous
Interviews from Nuclear Hotseat hosted by Libbe HaLevy, Jan 13, 2016 (emphasis added):

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear’s nuclear waste watchdog (8:30 in): “Another important thing that is very significant is that the radon is continually resupplied… Radon is going to be constantly generated by the uranium contained in the methane… So really you’ve got a chronic constant supply of hazardous radon gas coming out of this breach in California.”

Cindy Folkers, Beyond Nuclear‘s expert on ionizing radiation (16:00 in): “I’m absolutely astounded that they are not measuring for radon that I know of… I can’t believe that they’re not measuring for radon… [Radon] also decays to a number of what are called radon progeny which includes a number of short-lived radioactive substances, some of which are lead and polonium. Both of those can be very biologically damaging… There is question as to the kind of doses that they would be getting of radon, but it still is really very much a worry… I feel like — doing the research that I’ve done — that we are not getting the full story of what’s happening there.”

Richard Mathews, candidate for California State Senate who studied physics & astronomy at CALTECH (32:00 in): “People are really concerned about this, people are seriously getting sick… Thousands of people are getting sick from this — and it really is a major, major disaster… Methane floats away and spreads around the whole world… All the contaminants that are in with the methane are heavier than the air and that includes… benzene and toluene, hydrogen sulfide — all of those are heavier than air — they tend to stay close to the ground and move downhill. This is happening in the hills above the San Fernando Valley [home to nearly 2 million people] and so the poisons are all moving down into the San Fernando Valley and spreading through the entire San Fernando Valley… As the radon and other substances flow around, they are accumulating. They are not easily blown out of the valley, and we are getting higher and higher levels… The lead is going to be around for decades… The initial lead that you get is radioactive. This will be a continuing problem… It could spread through the entire San Fernando Valley… The damage that the radon does stays in your body… and shows up as cancer a decade after, maybe even 80 years later. So we really need to follow through.”

Terry Lodge, attorney (50:00 in): “You have a massive release, probably, of radon going on — and there may actually also be radium particulate… I’d be taking very rapid steps [if I lived in the area], I’d be running like hell. And the reason is, I suspect that there’s little by way of emergency anticipation — what could possibly go wrong? We have this vast underground storage facility… There are not radiation monitors… the problem is sort of the Three Mile Island problem… the radiation emission went way off the meter… there were no redundant rings, there was no monitoring certain distances outside the plant boundary. You don’t even have that at Porter [Ranch]… They don’t know how much radon is being dispersed… [Radon] can be concentrated by rainfall, concentrated by humidity, and inversions… There needs to be some type of soil sampling… air, and all that… So the problem is that radon is around in the Porter Ranch situation — nobody’s prepared for it. They’re not talking about it now — this may(sic) months into the crisis.”