Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Is Anybody Paying Attention To The Massive Natural Gas Leak Near LA?

 

• Bob Bowcock, environmental scientist (at 18:00 in): “We’re starting to hear about the larges­­­t natural gas well leak in the U.S… The State of California and Southern California Gas Company say it’s leaking somewhere between 45,000 and 50,000 kilograms [99,000 and 110,000 pounds] per hour… We’ve done actual field measurements [and] it can be as much as three times greater than what’s being reported.”

• Erin Brockovich (at 31:05 in): “Every person I’ve talked to — thousands of people — are suffering rashes, dizziness, shakiness, they feel like they’re in a fog, nosebleeds, massive headaches… Reports of animals losing their hair, animals vomiting, animals with diarrhea — people actually relocate to hotels to find their animals have passed… You are actually the guinea pig in this situation… As we’re now learning that the magnitude of this is way beyond what any of us have ever been told, and reaches beyond where we have come in and know that there’s been dangers. We need to learn that that’s been happening.

• Camille Sears, meteorologist (at 41:45 in): “SoCalGas has said that things aren’t so bad because the leak is 1,200 feet above the elevation of the community, and that gas is lighter than air. Well, that’s not really the whole story… That gas is going downhill… [Infrared videos] show the plume just running down the hill like water… [which then] goes right into the communities. It’s very little dilution… At night, from midnight to 6:00 in the morning, 90% of the time the winds are coming from that direction [from the gas leak to the communities]. I doubled checked this, because it seems like a phenomenal amount of time that the winds are blowing from the gas leak to the community… It’s a very unfortunate situation that the leak is located where it is… The releases are probably two to three times greater than what the California Air Research Board has been reporting… It’s becoming quite clear that the State is underestimating the amount of gas that’s leaking. I’ve been doing this kind of analysis for 35 years. I’ve done thousands of them since I started doing this in 1980. I’ve never seen a release of this magnitude before… I feel really bad… to report this. It’s not only a worst case emission, it’s the great magnitude of emissions coming out, but it’s also sort of a worst case meteorological scenario that these releases happened to blow from the gas leak down in to the community at night 90 percent of the time. As we’ve seen, those gas emissions tend to flow downhill like water and go right into the communities.”

• Robin Greenberg, attorney (at 1:01:00 in): “Pets are really being affected… Time and again someone sends me photographs of their pet and have these horrible sores.”

• Bowcock (at 1:43:45 in): “This is a very dangerous condition, and it’s something that you all should be very, very concerned with… That’s a pretty substantial area and everyone in that are needs to be concerned about it… Veterinarians are very concerned about it… because the vets are actually seeing a lot of really, really sick animals… It is impacting the animals much, much more — believe me.”

LINK HERE AND LINK TO VIDEO




Found at COYOTEPRIME

6 comments:

  1. For once, COyotePrime is actually telling the tugh, or at least posting articles that aren't greatly and overwhelmingly exaggerating.

    and this is gonna go on for about another 2 months, at the earliest.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, couple of things stand out- the gas plume doesn't include heavier-than-air componants- I'd love to see what the profile of high-density gases would be. ANd of that plume study, the volume of polycarbonate aromatic hydrocarbons. I'd imagine that there's a lot of shit that is relatively innocuous but making people miserable as hell.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thats about 214,000 cubic meters per hour. Or at 35,000 btu per cubic meter.... or enough to heat 54,000 homes in a Canadian winter for an hour every hour since the leak started.

    I tried to look up if this is a feeder line or a mid stream line. If it feeds homes it would have oderant to make it detectable for leaks but would have very little higher hydrocarbons in it as the gas company would have stripped them out for the money. If its a midstream line it will still have all the other crap in it.

    Given the size of the leak it has to be a high pressure line and a good size.

    This is my industry but i'vr never seen a leak that big before.

    Exile1981

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is a well leading to the underground storage.

      Delete
    2. Ok, an injection well into a storage cavern should be very clean stripped gas. So what is leaking is likely just straight methane with no high ends or aerosols.

      Somewhere before the injection site they should have a J-T plant or a refrig unit to condense out the high ends for sale. Most of the particulate would get scrubbed as well.

      Not saying it makes it any better but but some of the high ends are more toxic.

      Exile1981

      Delete
  4. Just check what happened at Lake Nyos in Cameroon in 1986 and then tell the people they are not in danger........

    Henk

    ReplyDelete

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