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Ex-SoCalGas employee warned regulators of 'potential catastrophic loss of life' at Aliso Canyon
Porter Ranch homes that come up to the SoCalGas Aliso Canyon Storage Facility on Monday, October 17, 2016. (Photo by Gene Blevins)
By Brenda Gazzar | bgazzar@scng.com | Daily News
PUBLISHED: July 23, 2017 at 9:54 pm | UPDATED: August 28, 2017 at 5:31 am
State oil and gas regulators approved resuming injections at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility despite a warning by a former Southern California Gas Co. manager over potential "catastrophic loss of life" in the event of a major earthquake, Los Angles County court documents reveal.
The state Department of Conservation's Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) and the California Public Utilities Commission announced Wednesday that SoCalGas' underground storage facility is safe to resume limited gas injections to avoid energy shortages in Los Angeles. The decision followed more than a year of inspection and analysis prompted by the largest atmospheric release of natural gas in U.S. history and a subsequent moratorium.
James Mansdorfer, who was formerly responsible for managing SoCalGas' storage wells and reservoirs, told DOGGR he was concerned that movement on the Santa Susana fault would "almost surely sever the casing" and tubing of every gas well, "resulting in release of gas at a rate of 100 to 1,000 times the rate of the SS25 leak."
SS25 was the gas well responsible for the nearly four-month leak that began in October 2015. It released more than 100,000 metric tons of potent methane over nearly four months, sickened thousands of people and pets and displaced more than 8,300 households in the northern San Fernando Valley.
"My belief is that there is potential for catastrophic loss of life, and in light of SoCalGas refusal to openly address this risk, my ethics just will not allow me to stand by without making the public aware of what could happen," Mansdorfer, who had also warned SoCalGas officials of the seismic risk in an email seven years ago, told DOGGR in a letter included with last week's amended court filing by the county.
Since 2006, there have been over 100 earthquakes in the Aliso Canyon area, with 16 ranging from 2.0 to 4.7 in magnitude. State regulators have acknowledged a high probability that an earthquake of 6.3 magnitude or greater will occur in the area in the next five decades, according to L.A. County officials.
Los Angeles County is expected to go to court Monday in an attempt to block resumption of injections at the facility until a root-cause analysis of the leak, among other things, is completed.
The California Department of Conservation said in a statement that Senate Bill 380, which details authorization for reinjection at Aliso Canyon, does not require a seismic study of the facility before injections can resume. However, DOGGR agrees that additional research on seismic risk should be performed, the agency said.
Like the National Labs', which is assisting regulators in overseeing seismic risk studies at Aliso Canyon, DOGGR does "not believe the recommended detailed seismic studies require immediate action, but they should be planned and executed in a deliberate manner," the state entity said in a statement.
Aliso Canyon also endured the 1994 Northridge earthquake "without significant impacts to public health and safety" and new safety measures have been "significantly improved" since then, state regulators said.
But Los Angeles County officials disagree, saying in amended court documents that DOGGR cannot "kick the can down the road" again and must conduct seismic testing before allowing injections to resume there.
"That is what the law requires," the county argued in the court documents. "The failure to comply with the law is inexcusable given that an earthquake at Aliso Canyon likely would cause multiple well failures and human and environmental harm much greater than the recent 100,000 metric-ton leak."
While working as a storage engineering manager in April 2009, Mansdorfer sent an email to the SoCalGas director of storage, Rudy Weibel, warning that casing corrosion, landslide movement or fault movement "are all potential causes of a major subsurface casing leak," according to the court documents.
He urged SoCalGas management to test and install subsurface safety valves. Instead the utility decided to withhold the seismic risks from regulators and the public in its General Rate Case Assessment, L.A. County said. Mansdorfer's comments were first reported by KPCC.
However, DOGGR, in a statement posted online, argued that there are risks associated with subsurface safety valves, including "reduction in well reliability" from malfunctioning valves and risk to facility employees and contractors who need to enter the well more frequently for maintenance.
SoCalGas said it does not agree with Mansdorfer's assessment but said they shared his concerns last year with state regulators. The company stressed that it has made extensive upgrades to its infrastructure, technology and safety practices in the last 18 months.
"We have met, and in many cases, exceeded the rigorous requirements of the state's safety review," SoCalGas said.
Meanwhile, Save Porter Ranch and Food & Water Watch, who have repeatedly called for Aliso Canyon to be shut down, are holding a rally at 5:30 p.m. Monday on the southeast corner of Rinaldi Street and Tampa Avenue in Porter Ranch to protest the regulators' decision to reopen the facility.
"The state regulators who do not have to live and don't have to deal with the fumes and the health problems that come out of the facility, they are the only ones who say it's safe," said Matt Pakucko of Save Porter Ranch.
Gov. Jerry Brown recently asked the chair of the California Energy Commission to plan for the permanent closure of the gas storage facility over the next decade as part of an effort to increase renewable energy and meet its climate change goals.
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Brenda Gazzar
Brenda Gazzar is a multilingual multimedia reporter who has worked for a variety of news outlets in California and in the Middle East since 2000. She has covered a range of issues, including breaking news, immigration, law and order, race, religion and gender issues, politics, human interest stories and education. Besides the Los Angeles Daily News and its sister papers, her work has been published by Reuters, the Denver Post, Ms. Magazine, the Jerusalem Post, USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, The Cairo Times and others. Brenda speaks Spanish, Hebrew and intermediate Arabic and is the recipient of national, state and regional awards, including a National Headliners Award and one from the Associated Press News Executives' Council. She holds a dual master's degree in Communications/Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.
Follow Brenda Gazzar	@bgazzar
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