CommentsGUEST WORDS-This week, I joined more than 100 Porter Ranch area residents and their supporters to mark the two-year anniversary of the gas blowout at the SoCalGas Aliso Canyon Storage Facility. The 2015 blowout -- the worst gas disaster in U.S. history -- released 100 thousand metric tons of methane and took four months to cap. For five hours on the October 23 anniversary, we blockaded the entrance to the facility that has gotten so many friends and neighbors sick. After two years of insisting that the dangerous gas facility be closed down, we were fed up with getting the run around from SoCalGas, state regulators and public officials.
We made sacrifices to be there that morning. Many skipped work or school to send a message to Governor Brown to shut down Aliso Canyon now, not in ten years as he suggests. Protestors held the blockade for hours in 100-degree weather – a record breaking October day. Sitting down in SoCalGas’ driveway may have disrupted business as usual, but this was only after the utility had disrupted the lives of thousands of neighbors for the last two years, with no end in sight.
We stopped trucks and vehicles from entering and exiting the facility – and were almost run over by one truck driver who laughed as he threatened protesters holding the line. He was arrested for reckless driving before being released on bail later that day. Things got tense after the driver tried to crash our line and about an hour later Los Angeles Police Department gave the dispersal order for us to leave. Eighteen of us continued to block the entrance to the Aliso Canyon facility, and were eventually arrested.
It was not a light decision to risk our freedom in this protest, but we had to do something to show that the government's own laws and actions are unjust. Residents are angry and blame regulators who are doing more to protect gas company profits than public health. Many of us have chronic health problems that they attribute to the blowout and ongoing leaks at the facility. These people make regular urgent care visits for nosebleeds, headaches and nausea. And they worry about the long-term effects of toxins on their young children.
This concern is justified. A recent toxicology study of more than 100 patients by a local primary care physician shows that many residents have traces of toxins in their bodies, including styrene and ethylbenzene, carcinogens that could be traced back to emissions from the Aliso Canyon facility. So far, no long-term health study of the community has been funded, despite a recommendation from the Los Angeles Department of Health.
In July, after state regulators allowed SoCalGas to partially reopen the Aliso gas field, one third of the wells immediately failed and methane emissions spiked. Just because they say it's safe doesn't make it so. Regulators dismiss community concerns over and over. Blockading the facility was our response to this silence and indifference. Our action demanded a response from Governor Brown, but his spokesperson gave the same weak answer to the news media: “We’ll shut it down in ten years.”
Sitting in the Van Nuys jail with 17 companions fighting for justice was more uplifting and empowering than I could have ever imagined. The amount of solidarity showed by this community to support and defend each other was an unforgettable feeling that inspires me to keep forging ahead in this uphill battle.
Families in Porter Ranch and the surrounding communities will keep up the fight until Governor Brown takes the action of shutting down Aliso Canyon before he leaves office. Decommissioning the Aliso Canyon gas facility is the right thing to do for the health of the community and the environment. A real climate leader would have shut it down long ago.
(Alexandra Nagy is a senior organizer with Food & Water Watch in Los Angeles and helped local residents in Porter Ranch break the news of the October 2015 gas blowout. She and 17 others were charged with misdemeanors for failure to disperse, and were subsequently released.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
-cw
