Porter Ranch Residents Are Still Getting Sick Weeks After Gas Leak Was Fixed
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/porter-ranch-residents-are-still-getting-sick-weeks-after-gas-leak-was-fixed_032016
March 27, 2016 | Joshua Krause | The Daily Sheeple | 1,853 views
Just as the Aliso Canyon gas leak dumped a million barrels of natural gas per day for months with almost no media attention, the underground storage facility was finally capped on February 18th with little fanfare. Most people are completely unaware that it was fixed, or that an environmental disaster had even occurred in the first place. But despite the fact that the gas leak has supposedly been fixed for over 6 weeks, it seems like the residents of Porter Ranch have never been so sick.
>SNIP<
Clearly, something is not right here. Either the leak was not really fixed or some of the chemicals that polluted the environment are still lingering. Somehow I doubt all these people are deluding themselves.
First off, Natural Gas is not measured in barrels. It is measured in MCF, or units of a Thousand Cubic Feet. Doing a little research, according to wikipedia, >
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliso_Canyon_gas_leak<
the article gives the information in a slew of industry useless units like car equivalent or cow equivalent greenhouse effect per day, but the number of sustained kg/hour is given as being 30,300 kilograms per hour. In cubic feet of methane at 44.25 pounds per thousand cubic feet (MCF), that is roughly 1500 MCF an hour (1.5 million cubic feet) or 1.5MMCF. That's a hell of a lot of methane and may include relatively small amounts of other gasses as well.
Natural Gas may typically include
95.84% V = Methane
2.02% V = Ethane
0.47% V = Propane
0.09% V = i-Butane
0.08% V = n-Butane
0.03% V = i-Pentane
0.02% V = n-Pentane
1.13% V = Carbon Dioxide
0.30% V = Nitrogen
May be some mercaptan...
benzene may be present as well.
in percentages by volume as a gas.
These gasses, and especially the mercaptans (which give Natural Gas the stink people use to detect leaks) can induce the symptoms people are having, and depending on the geology of the area, the gas and the mercaptans may have permeated the subsurface and near surface strata, including any aquifers in the area. If that isn't purged, it may take time to dissipate, which means people will continue to suffer ill effects in the area until that occurs (either naturally, or by pumping Nitrogen into the ground with shallow wells designed to displace that gas from permeable rock).
Considering the magnitude and duration of the leak, soil contamination in the area may be considerable, again depending on the geology.
I'm not pooh-pooing the symptoms, in fact, they make sense, considering the incident. If contamination persists, methane, ethane, propane, or other hydrocarbons plus the mercaptans added in, will give symptoms like those described to people exposed.
What should be done? Get someone in there with portable gas detection equipment to check for gas, in the soil, water, or ambient air. Basements should be checked as well. Sewers may have methane present under normal circumstances, but may indicate levels higher than would normally be expected. It may be still seeping out of the soil in the area, or if the community depends on well water, may be present in (dissolved or entrained in) the water.
