Impact of methane
Aliso Canyon, located at Porter Ranch in Los Angeles, California, is one of the largest natural-gas storage reservoirs. Connected to the earth's surface, this underground pipe suffered a leak back in October 2015. Invisible to the world, methane seeped out at a whopping "65,000 lbs per hour." Though unsure what has caused the leaks, it could be the old, outdated structure that released deadly amounts of methane into the environment. In the end, after a hundred day period, the total methane released was 109,000 metric tons.
As researchers attempt to figure out a way to stop the gas from leaking, the area was declared as a state of emergency by governor, Jerry Brown, in October. Thousands were forced out of their homes and many suffered from bloody noses and vomiting as a few of many of the health concerns. There was an attempt to plug up the leak by filling the holes with fluid but the methane being released is going far too fast and with too much strength to be prevented by the fluid. The only solution appears to be to dig a relief well which will isolate the leaking area and then fill the sectioned off area. The amount of methane being released per day is equivalent to the pollution released by driving "4.5 million cars per day." The Porter Ranch leak was reported at the time, to still take months to fix. Once again, administration works slowly to address the problems that have already had detrimental impacts on communities and the environment. Two years later, yet another gas leak was detected at Porter Ranch but shut off in fifty minutes. The facility is old and in need of repair. This problem of leks is reoccurring and the lack of visibility makes it easy to ignore which will continue to have detrimental impacts on the environment as well as those exposed to the leaks. losangeles.cbslocal.com/2017/12/19/new-gas-leak-new-symptoms-porter-ranch/ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/26/los-angeles-aliso-canyon-gas-leak-methane-largest-us-history https://www.edf.org/climate/methane-progress-california Article from LA Times ¨The ongoing California natural-gas leak is a disaster for the planet¨ |
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