Once again, state regulatory agency proposes to increase Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility - LA Daily News

Once again, state regulatory agency proposes to increase Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility - Daily News

Officials with a state agency that oversees operations at Aliso Canyon natural gas facility proposed increasing the amount of natural gas that can be stored at the facility despite calls from residents and environmental groups to shut it down.

Administrators with the California Public Utilities Commission, or CPUC, said the increase is “necessary to modify the maximum storage level to protect natural gas and electricity customers from reliability and economic impacts during winter 2023-2024,” according to a proposal filed in late July.

CPUC officials wrote in the document that wholesale natural gas prices through the West from November of last year to March of this year were “historically high” and the increased capacity “could dampen natural gas and electric price volatility in the future.”

The proposal comes as residents and environmental activists have been urging state officials to shut down the Aliso Canyon facility.

“(The CPUC) have two decisions on this proceeding and both have been about raising the gas,” said Issam Najm, former president of the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council, who has been following the fate of the storage site since the 2015 gas leak. “Here we are looking at the third decision to again raise the volume. It’s an absolute atrocity.”

The controversial facility is made up of vast underground sandstone reservoirs where SoCalGas can store billions of cubic feet of natural gas, and is one of the largest in the nation. The gas company withdraws the gas from beneath the ground in response to demand.

The disastrous gas leak went down in history as the nation’s largest-ever methane leak after sending more than 100,000 metric tons of methane and other chemicals into the air over communities in the San Fernando and Simi valleys. The same year, former Gov. Jerry Brown directed the CPUC to draft a plan to shut down the facility by 2027 — the decision which was later endorsed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Since then, the Aliso Canyon’s capacity kept increasing. In 2020, the CPUC voted to boost storage limits to 34 billion cubic feet and a year later it was increased to 41 billion cubic feet.

If approved, the current plan would allow the utility to boost its storage capacity to 68.6 billion cubic feet or near 100% capacity.

Representatives with SoCal Gas didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Company spokespeople have consistently maintained that significant improvements have been made to the facility to assure its safety and that its operation has helped keep energy prices stable and prevented outages during periods of peak energy demand.

A letter, which has more than 40 signatures from various environmental groups, including Physicians for Social Responsibly — Los Angeles, Food & Water Watch and Save Porter Ranch, urged the CPUC to reject any proposals to beef up storage limits at Aliso Canyon and expedite the closure of the facility.

Los Angeles residents “are still suffering in the aftermath of the largest methane gas blowout in United States history and (we) urge you to reject the application from Southern California Gas Co. to increase storage limits on Aliso Canyon. Instead, the California Public Utilities Commission must prioritize shutting down Aliso Canyon as directed by Gov. Newsom,” the letter said.

Senator Henry Stern, Congressman Brad Sherman and Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo issued a joint statement calling the proposal “an unwelcome surprise.”

“The impacted communities deserve reassurance this will not undercut the governor’s commitment to closure and the increase is, in fact, necessary. Such assurance is possible, alongside this decision, if the CPUC finalized their long delayed, but well-proposed decision to phase out Aliso responsibly. This proposal goes in the opposite direction.”

The statement continued: “If more storage can bring down prices, why didn’t SoCalGas Co. use their available storage during last year’s spike instead of buying gas at unprecedented high rates? Federal and state investigations are asking these and other questions in order to understand the cause of price spikes, however, this proposed decision appears premature.”