AIR CRISIS

SOUTHREN CALIFORNIA GAS COMPANY

PORTER RANCH, LOS ANGELES
CALIFORNIA
Porter Ranch is located in the northwest of San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los

Angeles, California. It is an affluent neighborhood surrounded by Chatsworth on the south and

west, Northridge on the south, Grenada Hills on the northeast and the east. Santa Susana

Mountains lie to the north and separate Santa Clarita Valley and San Fernando Valley.

According to 2008 Los Angeles city planner estimate its population is almost 31,000. According

to a 2008 Los Angeles Times article, it was a "calm outpost of Los Angeles" that attracted

residents "seeking sanctuary from the urban hubbub." It was noted that the neighborhood had

"some of the cleanest air in the Valley year-around—some of which is attributable to winds that

sweep through the community regularly."1

Porter Ranch gas blowout, also known as the Aliso canyon gas leak was discovered by the SoCal

Gas company employees on 23rd, October 2015. This leak was coming from one of the wells in

Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility which is three miles north of homes in Porter Ranch.

The blowout caused a massive release of natural gas into the atmosphere of Southern

California Air Basin. Analysis of methane and ethane data from dozens of plumes transects from

13 research aircraft flights between 7 November 2015 and 13 February 2016 showsed

atmospheric leak rates of up to 60 metric tons of methane and 4.5 metric tons of ethane per

hour. At its peak this blowout effectively doubled the methane emission rate of the entire Los

1
 "Wind-swept but comfy on L.A.'s fringe - latimes". Articles.latimes.com. 1999-01-24.
Angeles Basin, and in total released 97,100 tons of methane to the atmosphere 2. Worldwide

underground storage of processed natural gas is used to deal with the energy consumption

variations during different times of the year. This storage accounts for 10% of annual global

consumption3. Aliso Canyon underground natural gas storage facility is the fourth largest facility

of its kind in the U.S. accounting for 2.1% of total U.S. gas storage in 2014 4. It is a depleted

subsurface oil field with 114 oil wells with a total capacity of 168 billion standard cubic feet

(SCF) of which the working capacity that is routinely accessed for commercial use is 86 billion

SCF. This oil field was discovered in 1938 and peaked as an oil producer in 1950. The field has

remained active since its discovery. In 1973, Sesnow Frew Zone, one of its oil depleted

formations with an average depth of 9000ft was converted to a gas storage reservoir by SoCal

Gas company. It is one of the four facilities of such sort owned by SoCal Gas in Southern

California.

The blowout as defined by OSHA is an uncontrolled flow of gas, oil or other fluids from a well.

This facility was not designed to store gas under pressure since it is a naturally occurring oil

well. These wells have a single pipe separating the gas from the surrounding rock compared to

the newer wells with multiple concentric pipes with only inner most pipes transporting gas thus

further reducing the chance of a gas leak. There are 14000 storage wells nationwide and 2700

of those are Aliso Canyon type.

2
Methane emissions from the 2015 Aliso Canyon blowout in Los Angeles, CA S. Conley, G. Franco, I. Faloona, D.R.
Blake, J. Peischl, and T.B. Ryerson

3
S. Cornot-Gandolphe, "Underground Gas Storage in the World 2013 - Executive Summary," (2015).
4
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ngqs/ngqs.cfm?f_report=RP7
The Aliso Canyon blowout involved processed natural gas stored under pressure. Processed gas

is primarily composed of a strong greenhouse gas methane and ethane. It also has sulfur

containing odorants added to the odorless natural gas for safety purposes. These odorants give

a rotten egg smell to the gas to make it detectable in case of a domestic leak. These compounds

are tetrahydrothiophene and 2-methylpropane-2-thiol mercaptan.

The potential route of exposure to these gases is inhalation. If inhaled in sufficiently high

concentration methane is known to cause nausea, headaches and impaired coordination 5.

The most vulnerable population is the community in Porter Ranch which is 3 miles from Aliso

Canyon natural gas storage facility. The first responders were exposed to high concentrations of

methane gas emissions and have recently filed a lawsuit against the SoCal Gas for keeping the

truth and exposing them to toxic gases and putting them in harm’s way 6.

The health effects of the exposure to methane in the surrounding community of Porter Ranch

were short term. The concentration wasn’t high enough to have long term health effects.

Though the lawsuit claims that there were cancer causing compounds added to the processed

natural gas but there are no studies to provide sufficient evidence to support the claim.

There is benzene added to the processed gas which is a cancer causing chemical but according

to OEHHA’s evaluation of the air samples any increase in cancer risk to people in the area due

to benzene emissions from the natural gas leak is likely very small 7.

Benzene causes acute myeloid leukemia and hematotoxicity. According to one study benzene

can cause hematotoxicity in workers exposed to levels below the U.S. permissible exposure

5
https://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/chemicals-and-contaminants/methane
6
https://abc7.com/la-firefighters-file-lawsuit-against-socalgas-over-aliso-canyon-leak/4497803/
7
https://oehha.ca.gov/air/general-info/aliso-canyon-underground-storage-field-los-angeles-county
limit of 1 part per million8. The mechanism of action of Benzene is by causing genomic

instability in hematopoietic stem cells. Benzene leads to oxidative stress on cells leading to

generation of leukemic stem cells. This is one of the chemicals known to cause long term effects

and the latency period in the body to cause cancer is 5 to 15 years9. The evaporation half-life of

benzene in the air is 2.7-5 hours. It reacts readily with OH radicals in the atmosphere and they

determine the dwell time for benzene in the atmosphere which can be between several hours

and several days10.

Immediately after the leak was detected, the surrounding community was relocated at the

expense of SoCal Gas. The company started working at detecting the source of the leak. Seven

unsuccessful attempts to lock the leak have been reported. A relief well was drilled intercepting

the leaking pipe and then a heavy fluid injection temporarily halted the leak on February 11,

and cement injection sealed the well on February 18,2016. This leak highlighted that there exist

major problems with the state and federal natural gas policies and emission standards. In 2017,

the California Air Resources Board voted to finalize new regulations. The current approach did

solve the problem in the short term but in the long run the existing facilities need to be

inspected to prevent an event of this caliber happening again.

8
https://academic.oup.com/carcin/article/33/2/240/2464247
9
https://www.nap.edu/read/4795/chapter/16
10
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp3-c6.pdf