Doctors Urge California Residents "Leave Now...While You Can" As Gas Leak Fears Grow

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Claire Bernish via TheAntiMedia.org,

California Governor Jerry Brown finally declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, concerning the ongoing, currently unstoppable methane gas leak spewing from Aliso Canyon that has created a nightmare for residents of Porter Ranch.

“I will tell you, this goes well beyond Porter Ranch. We’ve had complaints from as far as Chatsworth, Northridge, and Granada Hills,” emphasized Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander during a Porter Ranch town hall meeting on December 28. “Apparently this plume of toxic chemicals and whatever it might be, doesn’t know zip codes […] This is the equivalent of the BP oil spill on land, in a populated community.

Aliso Canyon sits less than two and a half miles from Porter Ranch and less than 30 miles from the city of Los Angeles — the second most populous city in the United States — whose outlying total statistical area includes nearly 18 million residents, as of 2013.

Brown has been widely criticized for lack of decisive action on the leak, which is erupting from its underground storage area with all the force “of a volcano.” Under Wednesday’s declaration, “all state agencies will utilize state personnel, equipment, and facilities to ensure a continuous and thorough state response to this incident.”

Porter Ranch residents have been evacuating the area for some time, though SoCalGas’ rather maladroit handling of the relocation procedure has been a nightmare — and the cause for a mounting number of lawsuits, including one from the L.A. city attorney’s office.

Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer filed a civil lawsuit last month concerning the massive methane leak’s impact on area residents’ health and damage to the environment — which alleged failure by SoCalGas to prevent the leak and further exacerbation of “the effects of that failure by allowing acute odor and health problems faced by the community to persist for more than a month, to say nothing about the indefinite time it will persist into the future.”

Pediatrician Dr. Richard Kang gave an ominous warning during the Porter Ranch meeting, saying, “Unfortunately, the only real way to get away from the symptoms is… you have to relocate — you have to get away from the environment.” Health complaints include severe headaches, nosebleeds, respiratory issues including increasing cases of asthma, and a number of other issues.

SoCalGas, in the meantime, stated they were “providing air filters for people’s homes,” but though “the odor added to the leaking gas can cause symptoms for some, the gas is not toxic and county health officials have said the leak does not pose a long-term health risk.

But, as the Los Angeles Daily News reported on December 25, Los Angeles County health officials said prolonged exposure to trace chemicals, some of which are known carcinogens, can cause long-term health effects.” Nevertheless, they also “cautioned that levels examined so far here are not believed to be associated with long-term health problems.”

“The gas company says, ‘This is just the smell you’re reacting to, it’s just temporary, it’s not a problem, it’s not serious’ — these people aren’t stupid,” said attorney Rex Paris. “How could somebody possibly say that? We have children whose noses are bleeding every day, we have people who suffer from chronic headaches [and] are nauseous every, single day. How does that not become a serious issue? Why are they saying something nobody here believes? […] They’re trying to convince everybody that it’s all in our heads. It’s a trick.”

In fact, as Erin Brockovich pointed out, “no one really knows the long-term side effects of benzene and radon, the carcinogens that are commonly found in natural gas.”

Additionally, area house pets seem particularly vulnerable — possibly acting the part of unwitting canaries — as veterinarian Dr. David Smith described in the town hall meeting. Noting he has seen dozens of sickened animals, Smith said, “I’ve seen dogs, cats, birds, pocket pets… the primary symptoms I’ve seen are gastrointestinal vomiting […]These are not things you should be inhaling. He added, “We have seen dermatological issues as well, some very unusual bacterial infections in dogs,” including one case in which a dog had such an infection on its face, and “the client developed almost the exact same kind of symptoms soon after that […] their physician thinks it’s related [to exposure from the gas leak] and so I tend to think these correlations are real.”

Though the declaration of emergency states “the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources shall continue its prohibition against Southern California Gas Company injecting any gas into the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility,” it does not make that moratorium dependent on stoppage of the leak; rather, only “until a comprehensive review, utilizing independent experts […] is completed.”

Physician Dr. Brooks Michaels, addressing the town hall meeting, gave the sternest advice to those still in the area surrounding the unprecedented leak:

“If you have a chance to leave, if you’re able to leave… if you have a chance to relocate, do it now. I’m telling you, it’s really critical.”

Understandably, Brown’s state of emergency seems almost too little, too late for many.

You can watch the Porter Ranch town hall meeting here:

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Fri, 01/08/2016 - 09:31 | 7016570 Montani Semper ...
Montani Semper Liberi's picture

 The article talks about the leak coming from an underground storage facility which likely means a natural void left by a previous oil or gas well.

 If the methane isn't too diffuse after it makes its way up through the ground, it could be flared, but beware of unintended consequences.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 12:12 | 7017531 Lumberjack
Lumberjack's picture

It will only burn between the LEL and UEL. IOW, enough air (oxidizer) needs to be introduced for that to happen. A large enough membrane could possibly cover the area to contain the gas.  The line would need to be a composite/pvc type. The area will not blow up like you would imagine in the movies but if it could be safely burned off until the leak is secured, the public and environment would be a lot better off.  

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 09:43 | 7016641 Buster Cherry
Buster Cherry's picture

But it might get hot, and what if a bird or a Californian flew thru the flame?

What about them??? Oh the Humanity!

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 12:11 | 7017543 Lumberjack
Fri, 01/08/2016 - 16:03 | 7018696 Bunghole
Bunghole's picture

You mean like a lot of landfills and wastewater treatment plants?

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 10:52 | 7017093 Theta_Burn
Theta_Burn's picture

No way to control that 400ft. roman candle

Once lit that fucker would never get put out till the gas was spent.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 12:19 | 7017573 Lumberjack
Lumberjack's picture

Until the LEL is reached.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 16:05 | 7018706 Bunghole
Bunghole's picture

Ever hear of a bypass valve?

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 11:52 | 7017446 KnuckleDragger-X
KnuckleDragger-X's picture

Flaring would require a special permit from CARB and they will spend months in a circle jerk while this continues. They should be out there drilling a parallel well to get beneath the blow-out to seal it like they did wit the BP disaster. Unfortunately for everybody, tis is a golden opportunity for the enviro-nazi's to parade their stupidity before the sheep, demanding a totalitarian government.......

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 12:46 | 7017545 ThroxxOfVron
ThroxxOfVron's picture

They have no plan B.

Plan A. was to pipe the methane into a nearly costless subterranean void immediately below a heavily populated area as opposed to fighting the Cali NIMBY crowd and spending the money on the land and infrastructure required for the safe storage and distribution of methane.

 

1. They can't flare it off: the flame plume would rise hundreds of feet in the middle of the residential zone showing the magnitude of the invisible leak and galvanizing attention.

2. They might never be able to cap the flare once it is aflame.   The attempt to plug the uncontrolled shaft may indeed fail as well...

3. This is a massive defacto storage facility without any valves to shut down or pipes to clamp off: the geology has ruptured rendering the resovoir unuseable even without further damage from a botched attempt at flaring.

 

NOW the true costs and logistics of building and maintaining the infrastructure required for safely storing and controlling vast quantities of methane that the use of the 'resovoir' precluded becomes pertainant.

Tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure should have been propertly built for the methane and weren't so that 'costs' could be kept low -and 'profits' kept high..  -Yet another case of socialized profits and privatized losses..

Now the obvious folly of relying on geoplogical formations along active fault lines for storage is revealed to those too stupid to conceive of it and/or too greedy and short-sighted to care.

Maybe you should spend the fucking money required and put your fuels into proper fucking storage tanks and whatnot you dumb sons-of-bitches.

You don't like how the infrastructure that delivers fuels to your home looks next to your property?  Go without the fucking gas then or figure out another way to get it into your fucking home and preserve that wonderful view of the nexst stucco McMansion or Taco Bell or whatever...

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 12:57 | 7017777 BadLibertarian
BadLibertarian's picture

Sounds something like Wyatt's Torch from "Atlas Shrugged."

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 14:29 | 7018185 Raging Debate
Raging Debate's picture

Throxx - You got it. Push all the costs on somebody else then have bought off politicians label patriots as domestic extremists for attempting to aid the population. What could go wrong?

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 17:36 | 7021940 ThroxxOfVron
ThroxxOfVron's picture

I've got some bad news.

This methane leak is a much bigger story than that of an environmental disaster in Cali.

This reveals that geological sequestration of CO2 in depleted petroleum resovoirs and wells is NOT at all a viable solution.

These resovoirs and wells are NOT sealed vessels or storage tanks.

These resovoirs are geological formations -geological formations that have been distrubed.

 

This methane leak in Cali should have been expected at some point as there is no way to secure the underground geology -especially in a geologically active region.

 

CO2 should/can not be 'sequestered underground' as any rupture is very difficult to find and harder to fix.

The corporations that are proposing to 'sequester CO2', mostly petroleum extractors seeking to capitalize on depleated wells by re-purposing them for 'captured CO2 storage', CANNOT guarantee the geoplogy and cannot insure against a complete catastrophic failure.

Someone might want to inform the Carbon Credit hustlers and their ilk:

Geological Sequestration is a non-starter: a Dead End..

IMHO, absolutely ALL proposed underground geological/ empty resovoir/well storage and sequestration schemes have just been completely discredited.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 16:11 | 7018753 NachoLiebor
NachoLiebor's picture

Any idea about what the pressure in the reservoir is? With the kind of volume in this storage scheme, it allowed them to do quite a bit of "buying low and selling high".

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 17:58 | 7019272 css1971
css1971's picture

"the flame plume would rise hundreds of feet in the middle of the residential zone"

This sounds like a tourist attraction to me. Just give it a catchy name.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 15:14 | 7018432 steelhead23
steelhead23's picture

Mr. Heir, you are correct, buring the methane would reduce risks associated with breathing the stuff.  However, this is so. California, where wildfires routinely burn folks' homes to the ground.  Probably not a good idea to have a flaming geyser there.  Besides, how certain can we be that there is insufficient oxygen in the reservoir to cause the whole thing to explode.  Yep, I'd be real slow to strike a match anywhere near that geyser.  If you choose to do so, please set up a vid camera at a reasonable distance so we could all watch.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 15:50 | 7018630 aurum4040
aurum4040's picture

It can't be flared yet because the crack in the well has not been found nor fixed...

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 18:47 | 7019450 WTFUD
WTFUD's picture

I'm hoping there's a level of experience butting heads on the options and it's not a simple suggestion such as yours.

However, these days you never know if it's an attempt to kill off joe public or at least turn attention away from this depression.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 18:21 | 7023318 Buck Johnson
Buck Johnson's picture

I agree, unless they feart that the flame may shoot down into the main reservoir and blow it up.

 

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 09:14 | 7016481 junction
junction's picture

Don't cry for me, Obummer.

From his performance so far, Governor Jerry Brown is a total incompetent with a brain fried by drugs or alcohol or both.  The old governor Jerry Brown, in his 30s, would have shown up at Porter Ranch and looked like he was doing something.  The new Jerry Brown, pussywhipped by his wife, is just is a statue with lips that move.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 10:23 | 7016891 Tall Tom
Tall Tom's picture

Jerry Brown is a flamer and can care less about pussy.

 

It helps to have a former Mother in Law, who was a waitress who served these ASSemblymen and other Politicos right across the street from the Capitol in SacDEMENTO....Now that is INSIDER INFO as the waitresses do eavesdrop and gossip.

 

Jerry Brown is a queer.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 10:36 | 7016977 Buckaroo Banzai
Buckaroo Banzai's picture

Easy to believe when you think about it.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 14:33 | 7018195 Raging Debate
Raging Debate's picture

I am starting to like you again Tall Tom. See? You didnt even have to blow up any infrastructure. These dumb greedy sociopaths will do it all by themselves. They always do. Your job is to get the hell out of the way and stay alive to use that bright mind to rebuild. 

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 09:16 | 7016485 boattrash
boattrash's picture

"Will obummer cry over this?? "

Will Obama shut down drilling and storage on dry land  (even ones thet have been permitted)?

He damn sure did the offshore industry after the Deepwater Horizon blew...

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 14:40 | 7018244 Handful of Dust
Handful of Dust's picture

Barry will send in his pal, 'Fast & Furious' Holder to handle the case .... that would guarantee no one is ever prosecuted.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 09:22 | 7016517 yogibear
yogibear's picture

"Will obummer cry over this?? "

Wheres Rahm? He's in Chicago, another mess.

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste."

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 09:40 | 7016619 847328_3527
847328_3527's picture

"If you want to keep your methane leaking facility, you can keep your methane leaking facility."

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 09:56 | 7016721 Tyrone Shoelaces
Tyrone Shoelaces's picture

He will make a renewed push for 'common sense' gun control, and impose stiff fines on the racist coal industry, just for the hell of it.

 

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 18:36 | 7019420 Flagit
Flagit's picture

3D printed Coal Gun.

Watch the outrage set a new record of 7.9 on the Conniption Scale.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 10:14 | 7016825 Tarjan
Tarjan's picture

Humanity will survive. I am sitting in Nong Khiaw, Laos after driving down from China. Poverty like you would not believe up in the mountains of northern Laos, but people survive.

You mistake US subdivision life for how a lot of the world actually lives. They not only just survive; they enjoy life.

Good luck back there.

~ Tarjan

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 10:28 | 7016914 t_kAyk
t_kAyk's picture

Oh I get it, Americans have their heads planted firmly up their asses.  Point is that killing yourself is one thing, killing the greater beauty of this world is quite another. 

 

There are many great minds and souls on this planet, and not all of them are human. 

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 15:55 | 7018646 centerline
centerline's picture

Until a devastating asteriod hit.  Or eventually the sun exhausts enough of it's fuel.  Or a supervolcano.  Or a maybe a massive solar event resulting in cascading nuclear meltdowns.  Or nuclear war...  AHHHHHHHHHHH......

(I feel better now.  Thanks).

Better now and armegeddon (of whatever flavor), your perspective is something I wish more people around me considered.  I have been preaching similar stuff for over a decade now.  Funny that as the rat race spools up to "ludicris speed" more people are starting to "get it."

 

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 10:14 | 7016826 Coletrane
Coletrane's picture

He probably doesnt even know it's happening.

Somebody get him a newspaper.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 10:26 | 7016897 marts321
marts321's picture

Humans are a virus it does seem.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 10:47 | 7017050 The Saint
The Saint's picture

That's what the robots will decide in another 50 years.  It will then be time for an extermination.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 11:29 | 7017310 l8apex
l8apex's picture

So we've still got 50 years to go?  Party on!

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 13:03 | 7017804 BadLibertarian
BadLibertarian's picture

More like a slime mold, I think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWAkl4fx6Tg

*Not as individuals, but collectively, that's how we seem to behave. It's time to evolve into something better.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 17:01 | 7019049 Parrotile
Parrotile's picture

There's a LOT of VERY interesting biology in the humble slime mould. A very interesting example of how sudden changes in environment result in massive (yet reversible)changes in activity, and the ability to collectively organise to assure the survival of a relative few.

They are so genetically simple that changes in gene expression can be easily followed, and what we learn from the slime mould's lifecycle can be applied to other, higher organisms. Slime moulds and Wastewater microbiology may not be glamorous areas of research, but these areas are where tomorrow's big discoveries may well be made (assuming we HAVE a tomorrow . . .)

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 10:53 | 7017068 nscholten
nscholten's picture

That is the mind control working my friend.  It isn't the mostly good intention masses that are desegrading the planet.  It is the fucked up corporations; and after it all passes and the effects still linger they have their evidence to tax and of course kill us with a 1,000 cuts.  

Just start listing the cataclysmic events just over the past, what 10 years.  Shit, you would think it is an objective that politcians and corporations (fascism) are actually accomplishing. 

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 10:58 | 7017141 t_kAyk
t_kAyk's picture

I'm not for the extermination of humanity, but you and I are complicit in in all of this. 

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." 

- Edmund Burke 

 

How much longer do we sit on our asses to allow ourselves and our world to be raped and pillaged?  

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 14:39 | 7018239 Raging Debate
Raging Debate's picture

t_kAyk - Unless one lesrns who really runs this world the American people never stood a chance. But we are awake and pissed now and not just here on this site. The bad actors always reveal themselves over time and then they can get expunged. Dont expect them to go quietly they signed a big evolutionary suicide pact.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 21:02 | 7020007 t_kAyk
t_kAyk's picture

I'm not expecting it to come easy, just one of those days and I'm pissed.  

Keep fighting the good fight.  

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 11:01 | 7017152 t_kAyk
t_kAyk's picture

Double

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 11:12 | 7017209 vollderlerby
vollderlerby's picture

Silence peasant!  Obummer doesn't have time for this nonsense, there are many golf courses waiting to be played.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 12:15 | 7017555 TBT or not TBT
TBT or not TBT's picture

Fuck humans!    Not animals, unless you are doing it koranically.   

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 17:52 | 7019242 css1971
css1971's picture

Mohammed was into paedophilia not bestiality.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 09:25 | 7016531 SethDealer
SethDealer's picture

lawyer bonanza.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 09:28 | 7016554 snodgrass
snodgrass's picture

What the hell does Brockovich know about the health risks of this gas leak? She's just a shill looking for another payout.

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 10:15 | 7016829 SgtMilstar
SgtMilstar's picture

Don't worry Brown's sister is on the gas company board of directors.  She's another goldman sachs employee for 12 years prior.  You can bet all the people in the know have off loaded their shares on the unsuspecting. 

 

http://www.sempra.com/about/governance/board-of-directors.shtml

Fri, 01/08/2016 - 12:27 | 7017408 snodgrass
snodgrass's picture

Do you people still believe everything you see at the movies? Lawyers are nothing but the briefcase mafia shaking down people with the help of the media and hollyweird.

 

"Erin Brockovich" Town Shows No Cancer Cluster  Hinkley, California, the town made famous in the Oscar-winning Julia Roberts movie Erin Brockovich, does not show any evidence of an increased rate of cancers.

Pacific Gas and Electric, which released a toxic plume of hexavalent chromium 6 from a Hinkley-based natural gas pipeline station, paid a record $333 million to settle a class-action suit in 1996. But the California Cancer Registry has now completed three studies that show cancer rates remained normal in from 1988 to 2008.

From a very strange story by the Los Angeles Times' Louis Sahagun, who starts out with the Registry's findings but then lists more anecdotes about residents (including an eight-year old dog) who claim PG&E-related ailments:

From 1996 to 2008, 196 cancers were identified among residents of the census tract that includes Hinkley — a slightly lower number than the 224 cancers that would have been expected given its demographic characteristics, said epidemiologist John Morgan, who conducted the California Cancer Registry survey.

The survey did not attempt to explain why any individual in Hinkley contracted cancer, nor did it diminish the importance of Pacific Gas & Electric Co. cleaning up a plume of groundwater with elevated levels of chromium 6, Morgan said.

"In this preliminary assessment we only looked at cancer outcomes, not specific types of cancer," Morgan said. "However, we did look at a dozen cancer types in earlier surveys of the same census tract for the years between 1988 and 1998. Overall, the results of those surveys were almost identical to the new findings, and none of the cancers represented a statistical excess."

The LAT calls the rate of cancers in Hinkley "fewer...than expected." That depends on who was doing the expectin'. Back in 2000, when the movie came out, Walter Olson wrote in Reason that the Hinkley cancer cluster did not seem to be materializing and gave a thumbs down to the performances of the actual (rather than the Hollywood) Brockovich and her boss, Thousand Oaks personal injury lawyer Edward Masry.

Coincidentally, Brockovich is now back in Hinkley, pursuing claims about a return of the chromium plume.

 

 

https://reason.com/blog/2010/12/13/erin-brockovich-town-shows-no

 

By the way, all these bogus lawsuits result in the cost added to your bills and less freedom. Especially all these phony discrimination lawsuits. We're all free to discriminate. It's called thinking. But the state doesn't want you thinking so they ban discrimination.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!