Prosecutor reaches $4M settlement with utility for gas leak

Real-time pressure monitors also will be placed at each gas well as required by the state.

Southern California Gas still faces civil lawsuits from thousands of residents.

The misdemeanor complaint alleging the violation was filed on February 2 by District Attorney Jackie Lacey.

The leak, discovered on October 23, 2015, at the utility’s Aliso Canyon site near Porter Ranch, ultimately was capped, but not until after it spewed 100,000 metric tons of methane into the air, making many local residents sick.

The settlement also mandates that several safety improvements be made by the utility.

Only after that comment period can DOGGR decide whether the utility has met its obligations.

Southern California Gas Co. has agreed to pay $4 million to settle a case in which it faced a criminal charge associated with its handling of a massive gas leak in Porter Ranch, an affluent neighborhood of Los Angeles, last year.

“This agreement ensures that Southern California Gas Co.is held accountable for its criminal actions for failing to report the leak”, Lacey said in a statement. “Going forward the protections put in place by this agreement create a safer facility for its employees, the environment and the surrounding communities”.

The fine represents being fined $25,000 a day for each day that it failed to notify the California Office of Emergency Services about the leak.

The well that wasn’t plugged until February led more than 8,000 families to move out of their homes in the Porter Ranch area of the San Fernando Valley. It is reported to be the largest known release of climate-changing methane in USA history.

Alexandra Nagy with Food and Water Watch put it more bluntly: “This fine is barely a slap on the wrist for SoCal Gas, whose parent company made $10 billion in revenue past year”. They warned of blackouts this summer and in the future if it doesn’t return to full operation.

In a statement, utility officials called the settlement “another important step in our efforts to put the leak behind us and to win back the trust of the community”.

The settlement included a $75,000 fine and $232,500 in penalties.

Per the plea agreement, the utility will be required to install and maintain a new, infrared methane monitoring system at the Aliso Canyon site at the cost of between $1.2 and $1.5 million. “Jerry Brown to decommission the storage facility and shut it down permanently”, said Alexandra Nagy, a spokesperson for Food & Water Watch, which joined residents from nearby Porter Ranch in a protest at the storage field’s public entrance after the leak was discovered.

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