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 But the five-member hearing board of the South Coast Air Quality
Management District, meeting for a third time this month to review
the problem, delayed action again on a larger plan for addressing
the gas leak, ranked as the worst ever in California.
The board instead scheduled a fourth meeting for Jan. 23, at a venue
closer to affected neighborhoods, to take more testimony and
possibly vote on the proposed abatement order.
The stench of odorized methane fumes has sickened scores of people
and led to efforts to temporarily relocate more than 6,000
households from the Porter Ranch community of northern Los Angeles
at the edge of the leaking Aliso Canyon gas storage field.
The draft abatement order originally called for Southern California
Gas Co., owner of the facility, to install a system to siphon off
and incinerate a portion of the escaping methane. But the air
quality board stripped out that requirement after the company's
engineers raised safety concerns, as did local and state agencies,
board spokesman Sam Atwood said.
 The proposal still would impose additional monitoring and reporting
requirements, and order SoCal Gas to withdraw as much of its
remaining gas reserves at the site as it can as quickly as possible
while maintaining reliable supplies for customers.
The accelerated gas extraction is designed to ease pressure on the
ruptured wellhead and slow the leak - a measure the company said it
has already implemented.
Disgruntled residents have demanded that the 3,600-acre
(1,457-hectare) facility, where surplus gas is pumped underground
and stored until needed, be shut down altogether. Many have
complained of headaches, nosebleeds, dizziness and respiratory
distress.
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Atwood said closure of the facility is not under consideration by
the board.
SoCal Gas, a division of San Diego-based Sempra Energy, has said the
leak poses no immediate public safety threat because the gas
dissipates outdoors. But health officials said long-term health
effects remain unknown.
Several attempts to halt the leak have failed, and the company
projects it may take until late February to plug the rupture through
a relief well that engineers began drilling in December.
Methane, the prime component of natural gas and a far more potent
greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, was seeping out of the site at
the rate of 58 metric tons per hour in November, accounting for
one-fourth of all methane emissions statewide, the California Air
Resources Board reported at the height of the leak. But the flow has
diminished sharply since then.
(Additional reporting by Lucy Nicholson from Diamond Bar, Calif.;
Editing by Alistair Bell and Stephen Coates)
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