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Well, my, my, my. Do tell."The sister of Gov. Jerry Brown of California (D.) sits on the board of an energy company that owns a facility responsible for what is being called the “worst environmental disaster since BP” as thousands of residents have been displaced from their homes due to a methane gas leak that is expected to continue until spring.[snip]Many of the town’s residents have said that Brown has not done enough in his official capacity in regards to the leak, as he has not declared a state of emergency, nor has he visited the site.Kathleen Brown, the governor’s sister, sits on the Board of Directors of Sempra Energy, the parent company of Southern California Gas. Brown serves on Sempra’s Corporate Governance and Environmental, Health, Safety, and Technology committees and received $188,300 in compensation last year and holds stock in the company valued at over $400,000.In addition to Brown’s sister being a paid board member of the company, Brown himself has received more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from Sempra Energy and employees of the company, pulling in $96,800 from the corporation and $7,200 from employees throughout his political career, according to California campaign finance records.Since 1992, Sempra has made over $3 million in total political contributions, with 55 percent of those donations going to Democrats.An infrared video was released on December 24 showing the severity of the leak. Many environmentalists are up in arms over the “ecological disaster” and the response time needed to get it under control.“It is one of the biggest leaks we’ve ever seen reported,” said Tim O’Connor, the California climate director for the Environmental Defense Fund. “It is coming out with force, in incredible volumes. And it is absolutely uncontained.”http://freebeacon.com/issues/california-governors-sister-sits-on-board-of-company-responsible-for-methane-leak/You can be sure these facts will get the wide media circulation that is due for “worst environmental disaster since BP”.
California Governor Jerry Brown finally declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, concerning the ongoing, currently unstoppable methane gas leak spewing from Aliso Canyon that has created a nightmare for residents of Porter Ranch.“I will tell you, this goes well beyond Porter Ranch. We’ve had complaints from as far as Chatsworth, Northridge, and Granada Hills,” emphasized Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander during a Porter Ranch town hall meeting on December 28. “Apparently this plume of toxic chemicals and whatever it might be, doesn’t know zip codes […] This is the equivalent of the BP oil spill on land, in a populated community.”Aliso Canyon sits less than two and a half miles from Porter Ranch and less than 30 miles from the city of Los Angeles — the second most populous city in the United States — whose outlying total statistical area includes nearly 18 million residents, as of 2013.Brown has been widely criticized for lack of decisive action on the leak, which is erupting from its underground storage area with all the force “of a volcano.” Under Wednesday’s declaration, “all state agencies will utilize state personnel, equipment, and facilities to ensure a continuous and thorough state response to this incident.”Porter Ranch residents have been evacuating the area for some time, though SoCalGas’ rather maladroit handling of the relocation procedure has been a nightmare — and the cause for a mounting number of lawsuits, including one from the L.A. city attorney’s office.Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer filed a civil lawsuit last month concerning the massive methane leak’s impact on area residents’ health and damage to the environment — which alleged failure by SoCalGas to prevent the leak and further exacerbation of “the effects of that failure by allowing acute odor and health problems faced by the community to persist for more than a month, to say nothing about the indefinite time it will persist into the future.”Pediatrician Dr. Richard Kang gave an ominous warning during the Porter Ranch meeting, saying, “Unfortunately, the only real way to get away from the symptoms is… you have to relocate — you have to get away from the environment.” Health complaints include severe headaches, nosebleeds, respiratory issues including increasing cases of asthma, and a number of other issues.SoCalGas, in the meantime, stated they were “providing air filters for people’s homes,” but though “the odor added to the leaking gas can cause symptoms for some, the gas is not toxic and county health officials have said the leak does not pose a long-term health risk.”But, as the Los Angeles Daily News reported on December 25, “Los Angeles County health officials said prolonged exposure to trace chemicals, some of which are known carcinogens, can cause long-term health effects.” Nevertheless, they also “c
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The utility whose leaking natural gas well has driven thousands of Los Angeles residents from their homes acknowledged that it understated the number of times airborne levels of the cancer-causing chemical benzene have spiked during the crisis.Southern California Gas Co. had been saying on its website and in emails to The Associated Press that just two air samples over the past three months showed elevated concentrations of the compound. But after the AP inquired about discrepancies in the data, SoCalGas admitted higher-than-normal readings had been found at least 14 times.SoCalGas spokeswoman Kristine Lloyd said Thursday that it was "an oversight" that was being corrected. The utility continued to assert that the leak has posed no long-term risk to the public.Public health officials have likewise said they do not expect any long-term health problems. But some outside experts insist the data is too thin to say that with any certainty. For one thing, it is unclear whether the benzene fumes persisted long enough to exceed state exposure limits."I have not seen anything convincing that it's been proven to be safe," said Seth Shonkoff, the executive director of an independent energy science and policy institute and a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. "I'm not going on record as saying this is absolutely an unsafe situation; I'm saying there are a number of red flags."The leak at the biggest natural gas storage facility west of the Mississippi River was reported Oct. 23. The cause is unknown, but the leak has spewed huge amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and occasionally blanketed neighborhoods about a mile away with a sickening rotten-egg odor. The leak is in the San Fernando Valley about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.SoCalGas has run up more than $50 million in costs so far in trying to contain the leak and relocate about 4,500 families. Gov. Jerry Brown has declared an emergency, and some environmentalists are calling it the worst environmental disaster since the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.Health officials and SoCalGas have said most of the gas has dissipated, though the odor from the chemical additive that makes the methane detectable is blamed for nausea, headaches and nosebleeds.Natural gas also contains smaller amounts of other compounds, such as benzene, that cause cancer as well as anemia and other blood disorders.In the Los Angeles area, benzene is normally present at minuscule levels of 0.1 to 0.5 parts per billion, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. But SoCalGas has been saying on its website that the typical background level is 2 parts per billion.Apparently relying on that standard, SoCalGas originally said that benzene was found in amounts slightly higher than background levels in just two samples, both on Nov. 10. The suspect readings were 5.6 parts per billion in one gated development about a mile from the well and 3.7 parts per billion in the Porter Ranch Estates neighborhood of 1,100 homes.However, a more detailed look at the data by the AP and outside experts showed at least 10 other instances over seven days in November when benzene exceeded 1 part per billion.In its update Thursday, SoCalGas said that nearly 1,200 tests had found 14 instances where benzene exceeded 1 part per billion, including one time in December.The World Health Organization and U.S. government classify benzene as an undisputed cause of leukemia and other cancers. "No safe level of exposure can be recommended," according to WHO.California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment in 2014 set a series of limits for the amount of benzene people could be exposed to without risking anemia and other noncancerous disorders.Those limits are 8 parts per billion for a one-time exposure, 1 part per billion for repeated exposures for eight hours at a stretch, and 1 part per billion for several years or a lifetime.Michael Jerrett, chairman of the environmental health department at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that because of the limited testing done by SoCalGas early on, it is impossible to know for sure whether there was repeated exposure in parts of the community. He said he believes there is a "high probability" the eight-hour standard was violated.One problem with the testing is that it was done over very short periods that can indicate spikes but can't provide meaningful data on long-term exposure.Dr. Cyrus Rangan, a medical toxicologist from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said it is unlikely state safety levels were exceeded because spot testing didn't turn up a larger, more consistent pattern of high readings."You can't take a 10-minute sample that's 5.6 parts per billion and make any long-term risk assessment," Rangan said. "If that was sustained over several months in a row,
The daily global warming impact is the same as driving 4.5 million carsA gas leak deep under Los Angeles has been spewing 1.6 million lbs. of methane each day, with no immediate end in sight.The months-long leak in Porter Ranch is already the worst in California’s history, and environmental advocates fear it could have a long-term impact on the climate. While methane does not stay in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide, it traps
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Topic: 5 Facts to Know About the California Methane Leak (Read 4722 times)
