Nearly nine years after a massive geyser of methane gushed from the ground near suburban Porter Ranch, a coalition of 150 groups is urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to permanently close the SoCalGas Aliso Canyon facility — the site of the biggest natural gas leak in U.S. history that blanketed communities in San Fernando and Simi valleys with 100,000 metric tons of methane and other chemicals.
“We’re desperate for a closure decision and everything is really in the hands of the governor,” said Issam Najm, a professor, activist, and former president of the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council. “We are just asking him to keep his word.”
The 150 groups who signed the letter last week included Food & Water Watch, Progressive Democrats of America and Sierra Club California. They urged Newsom to shut down the vast underground facility before Sept. 26 — the date of the next California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) meeting.
The letter says that despite Newsom’s commitment to close the underground Aliso Canyon facility, which he announced years ago, his appointees on CPUC decided to let SoCalGas boost its facility capacity by 3000% compared to the amount of gas stored there in the last two years of Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration.
“This increase (in capacity) is a direct result of the CPUC’s decision to weaken the withdrawal regulations, allowing SoCalGas to operate Aliso Canyon at their discretion,” they claimed in the letter.
“We urge you to follow through on your promises to the community by requiring the closure of Aliso Canyon by 2027 at the latest,” the letter said.
A representative for Newsom referred the Daily News to the CPUC for comment.
Since February 2017, CPUC commissioners have been looking into the feasibility of decommissioning the Aliso Canyon underground natural gas storage facility.
Administrative Law Judge Zhen Zhang for the CPUC is expected to issue a ruling on the future of the storage field. However, it’s unclear when her decision is expected to come out.
Asked by this newspaper about the judge’s upcoming ruling and the future of the facility, a CPUC spokesman shared a link to the agency’s website with information on its proceedings.
“It has gone way too long, and in the meantime, nothing has changed on the ground,” said Najm, who has been following the proceedings for seven years.
During the disastrous leak in 2015, more than 100,000 metric tons of methane and other chemicals were released into the air over communities in the San Fernando and Simi valleys. Thousands of families moved to hotels and schools and businesses closed.
In 2017, then-Gov. Jerry Brown directed the CPUC to draft a plan to shut down the facility by 2027. Newsom later endorsed the proposal.
But despite those promises, the capacity to store natural gas at Aliso Canyon kept increasing.
In 2020, the CPUC voted to allow SoCalGas to increase the storage of natural gas at the troubled facility from the current 24.6 billion cubic feet to 34 billion cubic feet and then to 41 billion cubic feet. And finally last year the Aliso Canyon facility was opened to full capacity, or 68.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas.
In the years following the gas leak, SoCalGas maintained that the safety enhancements at the field were the most comprehensive in the nation.
A representative with SoCalGas didn’t return several requests seeking comment.
CPUC officials previously noted that the price of natural gas rose to historically high levels in 2022 and 2023 and the increased field’s capacity could alleviate natural gas and electric price volatility in the future, helping customers’ energy bills.
But critics maintained that the state could permanently close Aliso Canyon without compromising energy reliability.
“The facility was offline for two years after the blowout, during which time there were no blackouts or gas supply shortages in the region,” according to the letter from the coalition of 150 groups.
Helen Attai, a resident of Granada Hills and co-founder of the Aliso Moms Alliance group, said she was shocked to hear about recent findings by UCLA researchers that pregnant women who lived near Aliso Canyon during and after the 2015 blowout had a higher chance of premature births and low-weight newborns compared to women from other communities.
“I’m surprised that Newsom is not doing anything about that,” she said.
She said the governor should have closed the Aliso Canyon gas storage field years ago.
“I was hoping that he would step up and do a good job for the community and shut it down,” she said. “Only God knows what we have gone through.”
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