Five Years After the Largest Gas Leak in U.S. History...

Affected residents are definitely not voting for Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey

Five years ago today, a blowout from an old gas well owned by Southern California Gas company started quietly leaking methane. The utility giant didn’t report the leak for three days. And it took almost four months before it was sealed off. By then the damage was done: over 100,000 metric tons of methane had unfurled over the surrounding San Fernando Valley suburbs, leaving a noxious lamina of chemicals hanging in the air. Residents started experiencing coughs, random nose bleeds, rashes, heart palpitations and nausea they believed were from the leak. An avalanche of litigation followed, as well as protests and pleas for government action.

Today that is all still going on. There are fears of much more severe, longterm health consequences. Residents this week have been protesting up and down the state asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to shut down the gas facility, whose use has increased by almost 3,000 % despite calls by him to close it, according to the enviro nonprofit Food and Water Watch.

In short, residents feel local and state government officials were complicit. One of them is Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey, the county’s first black DA who right now is facing an election challenge from her left. Although she has been mostly criticized for her hardline approach to crime, as well as her handling of Black Lives Matter protestors, residents affected by the gas leak have issues with how tough she wasn’t. In this case, Lacey dropped criminal charges the utility was facing by the county in exchange for a plea deal. As part of that deal, the utility pleaded no contest for its delay in reporting the leak and agreed to spend $4 million on making sure the leak wouldn’t happen again.

But none of that money went to the affected residents, and they were pretty pissed about it. They feel they were illegally shut out of the settlement process by not getting restitution, citing a California statute named Marsy’s Law that enshrines certain victim rights in court proceedings.

“There is a lot of blame on Jackie Lacey,” said Patty Glueck, an area resident who has been vocally opposed to the continued operation of Aliso Canyon. “People in tune with Aliso Canyon are probably not going to be voting for her.”

“She didn’t do anything,” said Porter Ranch resident Matt Pakucko, co-founder of Save Porter Ranch.

Porter Ranch resident Deirdre Bolona said Lacy negotiated a “sweetheart deal” for SoCalGas.

“A $4 million fine for a $12 billion company, and to add insult to injury, I believe Lacey went against the California Constitution with her decision that SoCalGas pays no restitution to victims.” 

Lacey’s office didn’t respond to me. SoCalGas attorneys have argued that residents weren’t technically victims under the reporting delay conviction. The weird thing is Lacey lives in Granada Hills, one of the areas were residents reported falling sick. Former councilor Mitch Englander also represented the district where the leak occurred, but he just pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstructing a federal investigation into city corruption.

Typically prosecutors include victims into the plea bargaining process and secure them money, but in this case attorneys for residents said they were kicked out of a room where settlement talks were taking place between Lacey’s office and SoCalGas attorneys. An appellate court said victims have a right to at least argue for money within the three-day reporting delay window. The issue is still tied up in the courts.

“She tried playing the traditional, how-are-we-going-to-play-nice-with-SoCalGas-and-also-satisfy-the-constituents game,” said Mark Morris, who helped start Save Porter Ranch.

Residents also wrote a letter to then-Attorney General Kamala Harris, hoping she would help them as the highest prosecutorial authority in the state, but she never responded to letters, according to attorneys for residents. 

Harris’ own lawsuit against the utility came four months after everyone else filed, and settled when she was in the U.S. senate. Environmental groups and local residents criticized it as not holding the utility accountable enough. One of those criticisms was the settlement didn’t seek to mitigate methane levels, and that the utility received reduction credits already happening on the public dime.

The Aliso Canyon area has also been subject to fracking, something Harris declared, like it was a good thing, that a Biden Administration would not ban. State investigators have looked into whether the controversial drilling practice led to the leak.

Stories have portrayed Harris as a fighter for environmental justice, prosecuting big oil and large utility companies. While she has sued oil companies over environmental violations and prosecuted BP for a 2015 oil spill, her record as attorney general suggests she was more of a moderate on the environment. She once claimed to have sued Exxon, which is not true. There have been cases in which Harris opposed farmers and sided with oil companies. In one case, a Central Valley farm claimed drilling polluted aquifers, causing die off to their crops. But Harris blocked farmers from finding out about the state’s drilling permit process, which has caught flack in the past. Farmers lost that case.

Which kind of shows: Is California’s enviro-friendly reputation just an Instagram filter? Is it all on the surface?

“Los Angeles is an oil town, no different from Texas or Anchorage, Alaska. The only difference is nobody wants to admit to it,” said Morris.

More to come for a longer story I am doing.