Los Angeles County has asked the California Supreme Court to stop Southern California Gas Co. from continuing to resume operations at the natural gas facilities in Aliso Canyon. The complaint asked the court to stop new injections at the Aliso Canyon site until environmental and seismic safety studies can be done. The County of Los Angeles confirmed that the complaint was filed against California Department of Conservation’s Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources, which announced July 19 that the site was safe and operations could resume. This complaint filed Friday with the state’s high court comes after petitions filed at the county superior court and appellate level were denied last month. The judge ruled against the county on the basis that he did not have jurisdiction over California Public Utilities Commission and the oil and gas division. SoCalGas resumed limited operations at Aliso Canyon on Aug. 1, following the rulings. A massive natural gas leak occurred at the site from October 2015 to February 2016. “The California Public Utilities Commission has directed SoCalGas to maintain natural gas inventories at Aliso Canyon necessary to support the reliability of the region’s natural gas and electricity systems,” said Fiorella Canedo, spokeswoman for SoCalGas. “Our focus is on meeting that directive.”
