Unstoppable California Gas Leak Being Called Worst Catastrophe Since BP Spill
By Claire Bernish
/ theantimedia.org
Methane gas continues spewing, unchecked, into the air over
southern California from a fractured well to an underground storage site
— at such an alarming rate that low-flying planes have necessarily been
diverted by the FAA, lest internal combustion engines meet highly
volatile gas and, well, blow the entire area to hell.
This is, indeed, the biggest environmental catastrophe since
the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010;
and for now, there is no way to stop it.
This methane disaster is worse than can be sufficiently described in
words, because while it’s estimated well over 100,000 pounds of methane
spew into the atmosphere every hour, the leak can’t be halted,
at least until spring. Even then, that stoppage depends entirely on the
efficacy of a proposed fix — which remains a dubiously open question.
According to the
California Air Resources Board, methane — a greenhouse gas 72 times
more impactful in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide — has been escaping
from the Aliso Canyon site with forceequivalent “to a volcanic eruption”for about two months now. So far, the total leaked gas measures somewhere around 100,000 tons — adding“approximately one-quarter to the regular statewide methane emissions”during that same time frame.
“The relative magnitude of emissions from the leak
compared to other sources of methane in the State underscores the
urgency of stopping the gas leak. This comes on top of any problems
caused by odor and any potential impacts from exposure,” states the initial report on the Aliso leak by air quality officials.
