{"id":32884,"date":"2018-03-28T07:05:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T12:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32884"},"modified":"2018-03-28T07:05:10","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T12:05:10","slug":"aliso-canyon-disaster-highlights-risks-inadequate-safety-rules-governing-natural-gas-storage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32884","title":{"rendered":"Aliso Canyon Disaster Highlights Risks, Inadequate Safety Rules Governing Natural Gas Storage"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 id=\"page-title\" class=\"page__title title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2018\/03\/23\/aliso-canyon-disaster-phmsa-natural-gas-storage-regulation\">Aliso Canyon Disaster Highlights Risks, Inadequate Safety Rules Governing Natural Gas Storage<\/a><\/h3>\n<article class=\"node-12740 node node-blog node-promoted view-mode-full clearfix\">\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/styles\/full_width_blog_image\/public\/blogimages\/23389378449_b6286eba89_o.jpg?itok=_qzTosrD\" alt=\"Aliso Canyon's leaking natural gas storage well in southern California\" width=\"826\" height=\"551\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"new-horizontal-social-bar clearfix\">\n<div class=\"new-horizontal-share-wrapper new-horizontal-email-wrapper clearfix last\">A <a href=\"http:\/\/news.usc.edu\/136300\/who-should-be-held-responsible-for-the-aliso-canyon-gas-leak\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recent report<\/a> spearheaded by researchers at the University of Southern California blames the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/energy-environment\/wp\/2016\/02\/25\/california-gas-leak-was-the-worst-man-made-greenhouse-gas-disaster-in-u-s-history-study-says\/?utm_term=.a4a1c716aee3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">largest greenhouse gas leak in <span class=\"caps\">U.S.<\/span> history<\/a>\u00a0on dysfunctional management and poor regulatory oversight.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.socalgas.com\/stay-safe\/pipeline-and-storage-safety\/aliso-canyon-methane-monitoring\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Southern California Gas<\/a>\u00a0(SoCalGas) is the company that operates the Aliso Canyon <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynews.com\/2017\/10\/14\/porter-ranch-residents-exposed-to-aliso-canyon-gas-leak-carry-chemicals-in-system-health-study-shows\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">natural gas storage facility <\/a>near the Los Angeles neighborhood of Porter Ranch,\u00a0which suffered a catastrophic methane leak that lasted from October 2015 to February\u00a02016.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p><span class=\"dquo\">\u201c<\/span>SoCalGas had lenient requirements for infrastructure record keeping, no comprehensive risk management plan, and no testing programs or plans in place to remediate substandard wells,\u201d concluded\u00a0Najmedin Meshkati, University of Southern California\u00a0professor of civil and environmental engineering\u00a0and senior author on the report. The study was published in the Journal of Sustainable Energy\u00a0Engineering.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to its notable contribution to global warming, the massive methane leak\u00a0also required the evacuation of two\u00a0schools and at least 8,000 residents for months while SoCalGas tried to stop the\u00a0leak.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0California Public Utilities Commission also issued a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cpuc.ca.gov\/uploadedFiles\/CPUC_Public_Website\/Content\/Safety\/Natural_Gas_Pipeline\/Blade%20RCA%20SS-25%20Metallurgical%20Protocol%20-Phase%204%20RCA.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report\u00a0evaluating\u00a0the failed storage well<\/a> at Aliso Canyon, and noted that \u201csevere external corrosion was observed in the failure areas.\u201d Based on these reports, it appears that SoCalGas had a policy of allowing\u00a0its\u00a0gas storage wells to\u00a0operate until they failed,\u00a0such as\u00a0at Aliso\u00a0Canyon.<\/p>\n<p>DeSmog reached out to SoCalGas for comment on the\u00a0University of Southern California study but did not hear\u00a0back.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A History of Industry\u00a0Self-Regulation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In theory, outside inspectors could have potentially caught some of these safety issues during regular evaluations of the\u00a0infrastructure.\u00a0But as the University of Southern California&#8217;s\u00a0report details,\u00a0that is not how the natural gas storage industry operates in the <span class=\"caps\">U.S.<\/span> Instead, its description of the circumstances leading to the leak reads as much like a recipe for future disaster as an analysis of past failures. Previously, the\u00a0industry has largely been allowed to self-regulate and the trend continues\u00a0today.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aliso Canyon Disaster Highlights Risks, Inadequate Safety Rules Governing Natural Gas Storage A recent report spearheaded by researchers at the University of Southern California blames the\u00a0largest greenhouse gas leak in U.S. history\u00a0on dysfunctional management and poor regulatory oversight.\u00a0Southern California Gas\u00a0(SoCalGas) is the company that operates the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility near the Los [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11556,5317,11782,554,5656,690,19508],"class_list":["post-32884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-aliso-canyon","tag-desmog-blog","tag-justin-mikulka","tag-natural-gas","tag-natural-gas-storage","tag-risk","tag-safety-rules"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32885,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32884\/revisions\/32885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}