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The Interagency
Task Force on Natural Gas Storage Safety to look at the leak at
the Aliso Canyon leak will be chaired by officials from the
Department of Energy and the Department of Transportation's
pipeline safety office.
A months-long leak at the Aliso Canyon storage field made scores
of people ill and forced more the temporary relocation of more
than 6,600 households from the northern Los Angeles community of
Porter Ranch.
Scientists said the global warming potential of the release,
which began last October and was not plugged until February, was
equal to the annual carbon emissions of nearly 600,000 cars.
"The fact that this leak happened in the first place, the length
of time that it took to fix, and the disruption that it caused
for so many people are very concerning," Lynn Orr, a Department
of Energy undersecretary, and Marie Therese Dominguez, the
administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety
Administration, said in a release.
Aliso Canyon, owned by Southern California Gas Co a division of
Sempra Energy, is the country's fourth largest gas storage field
of its kind. The utility has minimized the extent of the
greenhouse gas impact of the leak, citing early California state
data, saying the release represented less than 1 percent of the
state's entire annual greenhouse gas emissions.
The Energy Department will hold workshops with industry, state
and local leaders to develop practices for operation of storage
facilities and ensure well integrity and response plans.
Findings of the task force will be made public later this year.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by David Gregorio)
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