Residents, activists and elected officials rallied in Porter Ranch on Tuesday, Aug. 22, demanding that California Gov. Gavin Newsom phase out the Aliso Canyon underground natural gas storage facility located in the Santa Susana Mountains between the Simi and San Fernando valleys.
Dozens of San Fernando Valley residents gathered at the corner of Rinaldi Street and Tampa Avenue near the entrance to the facility, which in 2015 became the site of the biggest methane release in U.S. history. The leak went on for more than 100 days, spewing 100,000 metric tons of methane into the air and forcing thousands of people to evacuate from their homes.
The Tuesday rally came on the heels of a proposal by state regulators to expand the capacity of Aliso Canyon. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) will vote on Aug. 31 on whether to approve increasing the underground gas storage facility.
Lori Aivazian, a member of the Aliso Moms Alliance, worries about the safety of children who live and attend schools near the Aliso Canyon facility.
“We urge the CPUC to stand by its framework to shut down the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility by 2027, which is supported by former Governor Brown, Governor Newsom, and numerous California state, and Los Angeles county and city officials,” she said.
Helen Attai, a resident of Granada Hills, called the Aliso Canyon site dangerous and said she was planning to call state commissioners next week, asking them to vote against expanding the field.
“It has to be shut down,” she said. “It’s making all of us sick.”
In the years after the 2015 disaster, many residents and activists rallied to shut down the facility, but its owner, SoCalGas, went on to increase its storage limits, arguing that the expansion was necessary for energy reliability.
In 2020, California state regulators allowed the gas company to increase Aliso Canyon’s storage limits to 34 billion cubic feet, and a year later its capacity was increased to 41…
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