The Long Reach of the Aliso Canyon Gas LeakWhen a geyser of gas began spewing from the ground in October 2015, it was just the beginning of an energy and environmental crisis in SouthernCalifornia with far-reaching repercussions.By DIANE CARDWELLJAN. 14, 2017
When a geyser of gas began spewing from the ground in October 2015, it was just the beginning of an energy and environmental crisis in Southern California with far-reaching repercussions.
In nearby communities, like Porter Ranch, the disaster upended lives: Schools relocated. Thousands of people moved to motels and temporary housing. The leak at an Aliso Canyon gas storage facility not only sent vast amounts of methane — a heat-trapping greenhouse gas — into the atmosphere, it also ended up spraying other chemicals, including some that were being used in the effort to plug the leak.
The catastrophe led officials to shutter the facility, at least until investigations and testing could determine the cause of the leak and demonstrate the safety of the wells. The Southern California Gas Company has had other, smaller leaks in the year since — one as recently as last month — but it says that 34 of its 115 wells are now certified to be in good working order and it is pressing to reopen the facility.
Many residents, however, as well as environmentalists and some officials, are fighting to keep it shut.
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George Chang and Susan Gorman-Chang liked the area’s hiking and horse trails that wind through old sheep pastures. Like many of their neighbors, they did not pay attention to the depot, a depleted oil field that had become a gas storage facility in the 1970s, until they learned that an oil company was looking to drill anew. “We thought we’d moved to ‘Little House on the Prairie,’” Mrs. Gorman-Chang said, “and we moved to ‘Little House on the Methane Dump.’”
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Patricia Larcara, who moved to Porter Ranch in 1989 to be near the mountains, said she still suffered headaches, fatigue and nausea in her home. She said officials assigned her to one place where she stayed for three months, then another 30 miles away. “I was so depressed,” she said. “I wanted to have my golden years, golden.
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Even before the leak, there were complaints about an odor of gas and symptoms like headaches and fatigue, said Matt Pakucko, who relocated for months along with Kyoko Hibino and their five cats. A group he helped found, Save Porter Ranch, had arranged for an area health study, but it was pre-empted by the catastrophe. The couple, who wore their gas masks while outside during the height of the leak, are among those pressing for a study to be completed and for the depot to remain shut down.
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Credit Coley Brown for The New York Times
The effects of the fumes on residents varied widely — even on opposite sides of the street or within households — a result, residents said, of different sensitivities and dispersal patterns from the strong winds that whip down and around the hilly, winding streets. Some at the edge of the canyon felt nothing, while others miles away complained of rashes.
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Credit Coley Brown for The New York Times
While the compromised well was actively leaking, residents received automated calls warning that an oily mist was wafting out of the canyon and that they should stay inside and avoid eating fruit from their trees. Jane Fowler, who had been considering selling her home, said she went into her pool one day to find the water slippery with oil. “My house no longer feels lovely,” she said.
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