‘My mind is just blown’: California allows more gas storage at Aliso Canyon leak site
LOS ANGELES — State officials voted Thursday to let Southern California Gas Co. store far more fuel at the Aliso Canyon gas storage field, eight years after a record-breaking leak spewed more than 100,000 metric tons of planet-warming methane into the atmosphere and prompted thousands of San Fernando Valley residents to evacuate their homes for months.
The 5-0 vote by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s appointees on the California Public Utilities Commission angered many residents of Porter Ranch and other neighborhoods near Aliso Canyon, who see the gas field as a continued threat to their health and have called on Newsom to live up to his long-standing pledge to shut it down. The vote also frustrated climate change activists who have urged state officials to do more to help families replace gas appliances with electric heat pumps and induction stoves.
Newsom’s appointees said they agreed with an analysis presented by SoCalGas — and endorsed by commission staff — finding that more fuel storage at Aliso could lead to lower gas and electricity costs for Southern California residents this winter.
It’s been two years since the Public Utilities Commission raised the storage cap at Aliso Canyon — which had been cut after the methane leak — to 41 billion cubic feet. Now the agency has upped the limit to the 68.6 billion cubic feet requested by SoCalGas and
