[env-trinity] Porter Ranch gas leak is one in series of CA environmental disasters

[Dan Bacher]

  http://fishsniffer.com/index.php/2016/01/27/porter-ranch-gas-leak-is-one-in-series-of-ca-disasters/

Photo courtesy of We Are Seneca Lake.

Porter Ranch gas leak is one in series of CA disasters
  by Dan Bacher
Hearing board action falls short of community demands to shut down  
Aliso Canyon Storage Facility

Save Porter Ranch, the Sierra Club and Food & Water Watch on Saturday,  
January 23 released a joint statement accusing the South Coast Air  
Quality Management District Hearing Board (AQMD) of making a decision  
regarding the SoCalGas Leak that “fails to adequately protect  
residents” of Porter Ranch and other surrounding communities.

The gas blowout that continues as I write this is considered by many  
to be the worst disaster of its kind since the BP Deepwater Horizon  
oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

Over the past few months, thousands of residents have been displaced  
and sickened by the fumes that contain carcinogens including benzene  
and toluene. The gas leak has emitted methane at a rate of 50,000  
kilograms per hour, equivalent to 25 percent of the state’s total  
emissions of this heat-trapping gas, according to the groups.

The leak detected on October 23, caused by well integrity failure, is  
only the most recent of many such leaks caused in California by aging  
infrastructure — and just one of the many environmental disasters that  
have ravaged California under the Brown and Schwarzenegger  
administrations. The leak has forced more than 12,000 residents to  
relocate and 1,800 more households are waiting for relocation  
assistance.

According to the news release:

After three weeks of hearings and deliberation, AQMD issued a  
‘Stipulated Order for Abatement,’ but residents and local elected  
officials say the order, which does not require the permanent closure  
of the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility, falls short of what’s necessary  
to protect public health. The order also appears to contradict  
Governor Jerry Brown’s Executive Order to protect public safety.

Gov. Brown’s order, issued January 6, requires state agencies to  
protect public safety and stop the leak by finding alternate supplies  
for natural gas and electricity; it also requires SoCalGas to maximize  
daily withdrawals of gas and to abide by a moratorium on gas  
injections in the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility.

The AQMD Hearing Board engaged in a lengthy debate over whether a  
letter in which the executive director of the California Public  
Utilities Commission ordered SoCalGas to keep 15 billion cubic feet of  
natural gas in reserve at the facility undermined AQMD’s authority to  
shut down Aliso Canyon by requiring a complete draw-down of the  
storage facility

“This move by the California Public Utilities Commission doesn’t  
protect the health and safety of residents of Porter Ranch and  
neighboring communities. It protects SoCalGas’ assets and it appears  
to violate Gov. Brown’s order to withdraw the maximum amount of gas  
from the field,” said Alexandra Nagy, Southern California Organizer  
with Food & Water Watch. “SoCalGas has been unwilling protect  
residents because to drain its facility would harm its bottom line.  
Absent consistent leadership from Gov. Brown, SoCalGas and the CPUC  
are working together to keep as much gas in reserve as possible,  
threatening residents with further exposure to toxic emissions. Gov.  
Brown needs to clarify his order and demand the drainage and permanent  
shutdown of the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility.”

The AQMD Hearing Board passed the Stipulated Order for Abatement  
instead of using its full authority to require SoCalGas to cease and  
desist operations at the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility by requiring  
the field to drawn down to the maximum extent possible.

“This is an ongoing disappointment and no one is managing this crisis  
situation. Without strong leadership from Governor Brown, state  
agencies are passing the buck and letting SoCalGas continue to pollute  
the air and poison our communities,” said Matt Pakucko, President of  
Save Porter Ranch after a decision was reached. “Governor Brown needs  
to step in immediately to require the continued withdrawal of gas from  
Aliso Canyon until the field reaches equilibrium and is shut down.”

Governor Brown’s Executive Order also calls for a moratorium on gas  
injection at the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility “until a comprehensive  
review, utilizing independent experts, of the safety of the storage  
wells and the air quality of the surrounding community is completed.”  
This process has not been initiated, and residents are calling on  
Brown to make the moratorium on gas injections permanent.

“SQAMD’s failure to put Californians’ livelihoods first is shameful,  
and Governor Brown should intervene swiftly,” said Michael Brune,  
Executive Director of the Sierra Club. “There should be no other  
choice but to shut down the dangerous Aliso Canyon facility and look  
to close every urban oil and gas facility throughout California and  
our country, to ensure the health of our communities and our climate  
is never again sacrificed for corporate polluter profits.”

As gas leak continues, California fish populations drop to lowest  
recorded levels

While much has been written about the Porter Gas Leak in the  
mainstream and alternative media, reporters and editors have  
completely failed to explain that the methane blowout occurs within  
the larger context of California’s many other environmental disasters  
driven by the Brown administration’s questionable environmental  
policies. And these policies and subsequent disasters occur within the  
even larger context of the capture of the regulators by the regulated  
in California.

While Governor Brown has posed as a “climate leader” and “green  
governor” at conferences and photo opportunities around the globe,  
including the Paris Climate Talks in December, he has overseen water  
policies that have have brought once robust Central Valley salmon and  
steelhead and Delta fish populations to extinction’s edge, in addition  
to promoting the Delta Tunnels Plan, a project that will only cause  
further ecological, economic and cultural damage. This an ecological  
disaster that will impact fish, wildlife and aquatic life populations  
up and down the West Coast.

As Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Tribe, said  
at a protest outside of a California Water Fix “workshop” in  
Sacramento on July 28, 2015: “Right now the existing water projects  
continue to damage our ecology. They have already harmed our fish and  
driven them to extinction. The tunnels will only complete the job. The  
tunnels that they want to build are large enough to divert the entire  
Sacramento River.”

“The tunnels are one key part of the plan that includes the Sites  
Reservoir, Shasta Dam Raise and Proposition 1, the water bond,” she  
said.

She said the water for the tunnels would be provided by Shasta Lake  
and Sites Reservoir – and that to fill Sites Reservoir, the Shasta Dam  
would be raised to hold more water from the Sacramento River.  
(nativenewsonline.net/…)

The “green” Brown administration in 2011 presided over record water  
exports out the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta — and the killing  
of millions of Sacramento splittail, an imperiled native minnow, and  
other species at the Delta pumps. ( http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/30452-the-extinction-governor-rips-the-green-mask-off-his-tunnels-plan

More recently, fish species ranging from endangered Delta Smelt to  
Striped Bass plummeted to record low population levels in 2015,  
according to the annual fall survey report released on December 18 by  
the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). (ecowatch.com/…)

Brown promotes expansion of fracking, carbon trading and REDD

Meanwhile, Brown promotes the expansion of fracking and other extreme  
oil drilling techniques in California and backs potentially genocidal  
carbon trading policies and REDD (Reducing Emissions from  
Deforestation and forest Degradation), according to indigenous  
leaders. ( http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/12/9/1458504/-Indigenous-activists-challenge-Governor-Brown-for-backing-genocidal-carbon-trading-program)

In addition, Brown oversaw the “completion” of “marine protected  
areas,” created under the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act  
(MLPA) Initiative, that don’t protect the ocean from fracking,  
offshore oil drilling, pollution, corporate aquaculture, military  
testing and all human impacts on the ocean other than sustainable  
fishing and gathering.

And it was only after months of intense pressure from  
environmentalists, public health advocates and Porter Ranch residents  
that Governor Brown declared a state of emergency in the Aliso Canyon  
Gas Leak disaster that began on October 23.

In an apparent familial conflict of interest, Brown’s sister,  
Kathleen, plays a significant role at Sempra Energy, the corporation  
that owns SoCalGas, the company responsible for the gas blowout. She  
earned $188,380 in her position as a board member in 2014 and $267,865  
in 2013. (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/12/19/1462031/-Jerry-Brown-s-ties-to-the-oil-and-gas-industry-highlight-regulatory-capture-in-CA 
)

Refugio Oil Spill disaster reveals Big Oil’s capture of regulatory  
apparatus

And you remember the Refugio Oil spill disaster of last spring and  
summer off the California coast? Both the mainstream and the corporate  
media refused to report on the biggest scandal of the disaster: the  
fact that the very same person who oversaw the creation of four  
“marine protected areas” that were fouled by the oil spill is the  
lobbyist for the pipeline company, Plains All American Pipeline.

Yes, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States  
Petroleum Association, the most powerful corporate lobbying  
organization in Sacramento, chaired the Marine Life Protection Act  
(MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force that created the alleged “marine  
protected areas” on the South Coast!  (http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/brtf_bios_sc.asp 
)

Conflicts of interest like this one abound in a state where the  
regulatory apparatus has been captured by the regulated, including Big  
Oil, corporate agribusiness, the timber industry and other corporate  
interests. (http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2015/07/29/californias-biggest-secret-oil-industry-capture-of-the-regulatory-apparatus 
)


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