Partnering To Address a Crisis
January 12, 2016
by Gary Toebben
When a community like Porter Ranch is facing a crisis, it is appropriate to expect a response from government that collaborates with citizens and the private sector to communicate helpful information about what caused the problem, and develop partnerships to address short and long-term responses and solutions. Such a response from government took place last week when the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) and the Southern California Gas Company (SoCal Gas) announced a new plan to partially address the release of natural gas and fumes from the Aliso Canyon storage facility owned by SoCal Gas.
Under the plan, SoCal Gas will employ pollution control equipment to capture and burn off the natural gas that is leaking from a well at its underground storage facility in the Santa Susana Mountains. SoCal Gas and AQMD have agreed that after the gas is captured, it will be transferred to a safe site for incineration, away from the well and urban development. If the plan works, it will reduce, but not eliminate, the need to completely seal the leak.
I applaud AQMD’s focus on finding a way to partially address this crisis until SoCal Gas completes its plan to permanently seal the leak by drilling a relief well to capture all of the gas from the area that is leaking. AQMD’s response was in stark contrast to those who have compared the Aliso Canyon gas leak to the human and environmental disasters at Chernobyl, the nuclear plant explosion in the Ukraine that killed 31 people in 1986 and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people in 2010. This type of comparison is not accurate. It only creates fear and anger. It does not help solve the problem at hand, which is to stop the emission of natural gas and its fumes, and to provide assistance to residents during this very challenging period.
Thank you AQMD for focusing on solutions that go beyond fearmongering. That is what we expect from government and from our partners in times of great challenges.
And that’s The Business Perspective.
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