In the meantime, two schools have been relocated due to the continuing leak, and more than 1,000 students from Porter Ranch will not head back to school on Monday, as is planned for the majority of Los Angeles Unified School District.
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Pavley said the package of bills would complement an emergency declaration from the governor and would require the gas company to pay environmental costs and for relocation of residents and not pass them along to ratepayers.
Adding to the pressure, State Sen. However, groups like EDF have been warning that the country’s natural gas infrastructure, from drilling sites to pipelines and power plants, is rife with gas leaks large and small.
“After this leak has stopped and the cameras go away and go on to other stories, the state Senate will have legislation to assist homeowners and make sure this kind of tragedy will never happen again”, Pavley said.
But a closer look at its online data shows that a dozen samples contained at least twice the amount of benzene that Southern California regulators consider the normal background level.
Health officials and SoCalGas have said most of the gas has dissipated, though the odor from the chemical additive that makes the gas detectable is blamed for nausea, headaches and nosebleeds.
Residents who have fled the greenhouse gas have encountered other problems along the way. It would also designate the state Office of Emergency Services to coordinate the response activities of as many as seven other state agencies that previously had been working cooperatively, but independently of each other. South Sacramento almost got one in 2007, after a storage facility to serve Sacramento Metropolitan Utility District, among others, was proposed for a sandstone formation in a former Florin gas field 3,800 feet below the Avondale/Glen Elder neighborhood.
EDF’s O’Connor said the leak has been “an emergency since day one”. These chemicals are created to alert people of the presence of natural gas, which otherwise would be odorless, and presents an explosion risk. The bills also seek to strengthen existing laws for natural gas storage facilities and well standards and requirements to guard against similar leaks.
Crews from Southern California Gas Company and outside experts work on a relief well at the Aliso Ca … She said that California’s growing population needs adequate supplies of energy. “I don’t have that magic number, but definitely over a mile”.
“They’re trying to stop a leak that they themselves have admitted is the most complex and high volume leak in their history”, he said. The AQMD hearing board is considering approval of an agreement between the gas company and AQMD staff that is short of a complete shutdown.
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SCAQMD spokesman Sam Atwood told Bloomberg BNA in a January 11 e-mail that more information would become available on the gas capture and disposal plan, perhaps later this week. Even if the methane gas is considered a transitional energy source before more renewable energies take hold the transition can not be done overnight, Pavley said.
