Supervisors Want Aliso Gas Expansion Stopped

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to urge the California Public Utilities Commission to stop Southern California Gas Co. from expanding its natural gas storage capacity at its Aliso Canyon facility.Any increase in gas storage limits at Aliso Canyon would defy the directive by Gov. Gavin Newsom for the CPUC to identify pathways for closing the facility, according to a press release from an environmental group.In a statement to the Business Journal, Christine Detz, a spokesperson for SoCalGas, said that the utility worked with independent experts and state regulators to redesign Aliso Canyon to be state of the art and as a result SoCalGas’ storage facilities are the safest in the nation.“Aliso Canyon continues to play a vital role in the resiliency of California’s energy system, supporting the decarbonization of electricity during the peaks and valleys of solar and wind supply,” Detz wrote in the statement.The Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility, located near Porter Ranch in the north San Fernando Valley, was the site of the nation’s largest natural gas leak. The leak began in October 2015 and was finally plugged in February 2016.

         SoCalGas is owned by Sempra Energy in San Diego and is the largest natural gas distribution utility in the United States, serving nearly 22 million customers.Alexandra Nagy, the state’s director of Food & Water Watch, a national advocacy group to protect food, water and the climate, said that the county supervisors are doing their part “to protect public health and ensure the safety of San Fernando Valley residents” but claimed the same cannot be said for the CPUC.“The CPUC has neglected its mandate from Governor Newsom to find a pathway for closing the Aliso Canyon facility and opted instead for silence as SoCalGas plans to expand this dangerous gas infrastructure,” Nagy said in a statement. “It’s time for the CPUC to step up, speak out, and stop this expansion of the gas storage facility at Aliso Canyon. If the CPUC fails to meet the moment, we urge Governor Newsom to step in and lead.”In her statement, Detz said that since the leak was plugged, there have been five independent assessments of SoCalGas’s gas storage system and that all of them concluded that gas storage, especially in Aliso Canyon, is essential to energy reliability.“We saw this firsthand in February when Aliso Canyon and our other storage fields not only helped keep the lights on here in California when gas supplies from Texas were limited, but also protected customers from price spikes experienced in other states,” Detz wrote in the statement.“Supplies from Aliso Canyon have become increasingly important during the summer months as well. The facility has already been needed multiple times this summer during periods of peak energy demand.”