Timeline: Major developments in Aliso Canyon gas leak

The sixth day of the find of the Aliso Canyon earthy state leak astatine Southern California Gas Co.’s state retention installation adjacent the apical of Oat Mountain successful the Santa Susana Mountains volition beryllium marked connected Saturday, Oct. 23.

Employees connected that day successful 1995 discovered a methane leak rising from a 8,750-foot heavy well, named Standard Sesnon 25, oregon SS 25 for short, that had been installed successful 1953. The good was converted connected June 6, 1973 arsenic state storage.

Company spokesperson Javier Mendoza said successful an email days aft the leak that “SoCalGas and different experts expect it whitethorn instrumentality respective days oregon longer to place the safest and champion solution to halt and repair the leak. The repairs not yet started.”

The quality of the state leak was archetypal spoken astir publically connected Oct. 26 during a scheduled gathering with Porter Ranch neighbors to sermon a turbine replacement project. Although the archetypal missive astir the leak was emailed to immoderate successful the Porter Ranch assemblage connected Oct. 27, it wasn’t until Oct. 31 that SoCalGas mailed letters to astir 8,000 residents.

The company’s missive sent connected Oct. 31 included an apology astir not contacting residents sooner. The missive besides had a website nexus to the company’s location leafage regarding the effort to repair the good and updates.

Los Angeles County Department of Public Health ordered SoCalGas connected Nov. 19 to connection escaped impermanent relocation assistance to residents of Porter Ranch who person been experiencing dizziness, gastrointestinal discomfort, nausea, nosebleeds and respiratory issues since the leak occurred.

California’s Department of Conservation Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources part estimated successful mid-November that the good was releasing betwixt 500,000 to 1 cardinal cubic feet of methane per day.

The state leak was yet controlled connected Feb. 11, 2016. The good was “officially sealed” arsenic of Feb. 18, 2016.

The Aliso Canyon retention tract is 1 of the largest earthy state fields successful the United States. It has a capableness for 84 cardinal cubic feet of earthy gas, according to California Public Utilities Commission documents. There are 115 wells astatine the field.

Here is simply a sampling of important dates since the Aliso Canyon earthy state leak occurred:

–Oct. 23, 2015 – Southern California Ga Co. employees observe a leak astatine good SS 25.

–Oct. 26, 2015 – Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby reports that SoCalGas notified his bureau of the leak.

–Oct. 28, 2015 -SoCalGas begins posting leak updates connected its website.

–Nov. 4, 2015 – Residents and stakeholders successful Porter Ranch, including the recently formed nonprofit Save Porter Ranch, flood a gathering of the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council to perceive what state institution and different agencies had to accidental astir a repair of the good and the wellness concerns spurred by the leak.

–Nov. 6, 2015 – SoCalGas tries a brine solution to plug the leaking well.

–Nov. 18, 2015 – California’s Department of Conservation Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources issues an exigency bid to SoCalGas to crook implicit investigating information and taxable a program to plug the leak.

–Nov. 19 – Los Angeles County Department of Public Health orders SoCalGas to connection escaped impermanent relocation assistance for families who privation to permission their Porter Ranch homes.

–Nov. 26, 2015 – SoCalGas states that the institution had 503 inquiries astir relocation and 132 families had taken up the connection to relocate.

–Nov. 30, 2015 – SoCalGas states that the repair of the leak whitethorn instrumentality 4 months. The fig of families relocating rises to astir 300.

–Dec. 1, 2015 – SoCalGas institution president and CEO Dennis Arriola apologizes to residents. The fig of households relocating rises to astir 1,000.

–Dec. 7, 2015 – Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer files a civilian suit against Southern California Gas Co. alleging that the leak has threatened residents’ wellness and biology harm.

–Dec. 10, 2015 – California’s Department of Conservation Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources issues a 2nd exigency bid and begins  forming a peculiar sheet to show the state company’s plans to hole the leak. Rep. Brad Sherman asks the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, left, accompanied by SoCal Gas President and CEO Dennis Arriola, center, SoCal COO Bret Lane, arsenic they sojourn the Aliso Canyon installation successful the Porter Ranch vicinity of Los Angeles, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015, to look astatine drilling of a alleviation good to stem a state leak astatine an adjacent good successful an underground retention field. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via AP) 

–Dec. 11, 2015 – The Federal Aviation Administration issues a impermanent ban, until March 8, 2016, of craft formation implicit Porter Ranch for information reasons.  SoCalGas states they person 3,477 inquiries astir relocation assistance.

–Dec. 12, 2015 – Residents telephone for a shutdown of the Aliso Canyon retention installation during a protestation astatine the state field’s gross adjacent the apical of Tampa Avenue. The protestation was co-organized by Save Porter Ranch. Javier Mendoza, a spokesperson for SoCalGas says, “The nonaccomplishment of Aliso Canyon could person a nonstop impact connected electrical grid reliability. Electric generators served by Aliso Canyon would beryllium taxable to earthy state curtailments, which successful crook could pb to energy blackouts.”

–Dec. 15, 2015 – Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors state a authorities of emergency. The action, projected by Supervisor Michael Antonovich, paves the mode for national and authorities assistance. The Los Angeles City Council approves exigency motions for relocation efforts, concern and nonmigratory taxation relief. SoCalGas opens a Community Resource Center for accusation connected relocation, filing a assertion and obtaining escaped location aerial filtration and upwind stripping to trim the state leak odor.

–Dec. 17, 2015 – Los Angeles Unified School District committee votes to relocate students and unit from 2 Porter Ranch Schools. First infrared video shows state plume implicit Porter Ranch.

–Dec. 18, 2015 – SoCalGas says much than 2,000 households person relocated to impermanent housing.

–Dec. 24, 2015 – Another effort to pump fluids into good to halt the leak fails.

–Dec. 29, 2015 – The United States Environmental Protection Agency opens an probe into the state leak.

–Jan. 6, 2016 – Gov. Jerry Brown declares a authorities of exigency implicit the state leak.

–Jan. 8, 2016 – SoCalGas seeks to get support to to seizure and pain state leaking from the good site.

–Jan. 18, 2016 – SoCalGas says leak volition beryllium fixed by precocious February 2016.

–Jan. 20, 2016 – Los Angeles County Health Department to grow aerial monitoring successful and astir Porter Ranch.

–Jan. 23, 2016 – The South Coast Air Quality Management District orders the leaking good to beryllium unopen down erstwhile it’s plugged.

–Jan. 25, 2016 – Porter Ranch businesses record a class-action suit against SoCalGas implicit nonaccomplishment of revenues.

–Feb. 2, 2016 – Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey files a misdemeanor transgression suit against SoCalGas for failing to instantly study the state leak. California Attorney General Kamala Harris files a suit against SoCal Gas.

–Feb. 11, 2016 – SoCalGas says state leak has been temporarily controlled.

–Feb. 18, 2016 – The Standard Sesnon 25 good is officially sealed.

–Feb. 25, 2016 – Researchers astatine UC Davis and Irvine campuses positive the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration people a survey that says the 100,00 tons of methane that spewed into the ambiance from the state leak was the largest earthy state leak catastrophe ever recorded successful the U.S.

–May 10, 2016 – Gov. Jerry Brown signs SB 380 requiring SoCalGas officials and authorities regulators to adhere to strict information standards earlier the Aliso Canyon retention installation tin beryllium reopened.

–June 22, 2016 – President Barack Obama signs the Protecting Our Infrastructure Pipelines and Enhancing Safety Act of 2016. The bill, primitively written by Rep. Steve Knight and aboriginal merged into the bipartisan law, aims to forestall earthy state leaks similar the 1 successful Aliso Canyon.

–Sept. 13, 2016 – SoCalGas agrees to wage a $4.3 cardinal colony for failing to rapidly study the Oct. 23, 2015 state leak. The colony is portion of the misdemeanor transgression suit filed by the L.A. District Attorney successful February.

–Feb. 9, 2017 – The California Public Utilities Commission opens a proceeding to either minimize oregon adjacent down Aliso Canyon “while inactive maintaining vigor and electrical reliability” for the Los Angeles area.

–July 19, 2017 – State regulators springiness support for the retention installation to run and partial state injection whitethorn resume.

–Jan. 29, 2019 – Los Angeles Fire Department firefighters writer SoCalGas arsenic a suit is filed with Los Angeles Superior Court.

–Feb. 25, 2019 – Los Angeles Superior Court justice Carolyn Kuhl approves a $120 cardinal colony — a consent decree betwixt Southern California Gas Co. and city, region and authorities officials — that volition money a semipermanent wellness survey and different biology projects.

–May 17, 2019 – An autarkic probe study by Blade Energy Partners recovered that the basal origin of the leak was a rupture of a good casing owed to microbial corrosion from the extracurricular resulting from interaction with crushed water.

–Nov. 20, 2019 – Gov. Gavin Newsom sends a missive to the California Public Utilities Commission asking for an autarkic third-party expert’s proposal connected streamlining a imperishable closure of the Aliso Canyon facility.

–Feb. 20, 2020 – Los Angeles Superior Court justice Carolyn Kuhl orders SoCalGas to wage $525,610 for “repeated nonaccomplishment to supply capable justification for the withholding of thousands of supposedly privileged documents.”

–Aug. 5, 2021 — Dozens of residents and activists impulse the authorities bureau overseeing operations astatine Aliso Canyon earthy state retention installation to forestall the institution from expanding its capacity, lining up to talk astatine the agency’s gathering on.

–July 27, 2021 — Los Angeles County Supervisors ballot unanimously to nonstop a missive to the California Public Utilities Commission, which oversees operations astatine the Aliso Canyon earthy state retention facility, to halt SoCalGas from expanding the site’s retention capacity.

–Sept. 27, 2021 — Southern California Gas Company and its genitor institution Sempra Energy hold to wage up to $1.8 cardinal to settee the claims of implicit 35,000 victims of the 2015 Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility blowout, according to a idiosyncratic wounded instrumentality steadfast representing plaintiffs impacted by the leak.