While doing research for our film project on gas infrastructure, we learned about the importance of fugitive methane. Natural gas might burn cleaner than coal, but when you take fugitive methane into account, you end up with a real problem Gas leaks into the atmosphere every step of the way in gas infrastructure and is 80+ times worse as a greenhouse gas than CO2. From the wellhead, the pipelines, compressor stations and storage facilities. Fugitive methane is the game changer which makes gas even worse than coal.
Thanks to the internet, I have become a fugitive methane junkie. Reading all sorts of scientific studies and articles about leaking gas. In the midst of all my studying, and my Google Alert for “methane leaks” I stumbled upon a news story. A huge news story that was not being reported in mainstream media.
A giant gas leak has been happening in Porter Ranch, CA since October 2015. Hard to call it a leak, it’s more like a methane volcano. A disaster on the scale of BP’s Deepwater Horizon debacle. Except fugitive gas is invisible to the naked eye. Thousands of families have had their lives disrupted because of this blast of gas from an underground storage facility. They’ve suffered nosebleeds, mysterious rashes, headaches and more. Many have been relocated until the leak can be stopped and the air safer to breathe.
Andrea and I are headed West to Porter Ranch in a few days. We are hoping to interview experts, impacted families, health professionals and people who work for SoCal Gas. We hope to turn our footage into a compelling reel that will tell the story of this huge problem with gas infrastructure. It is vital that more folks learn about the Porter Ranch ‘leak’. If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.
If you know of anyone impacted by this disaster who might want to speak with us, please send them our way.
STAY TUNED for more details.
