AMU Emergency Management Public Safety

Study: CA Methane Leak Was Second Largest Ever in U.S.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently published analysis of data from the massive Aliso Canyon gas leak, which discovered that the methane leak was the second largest ever recorded in the U.S.

The natural gas leak, which occurred near Porter Ranch, CA, was initially discovered on October 23, 2015 and wasn’t completely plugged until February 18, 2016.

Researchers analyzed air quality in the gas leak region by quantifying the atmospheric leak rate and assessing air quality downwind of the leaking well through data gathered by research aircraft flights between November 7, 2015 and February 13, 2016.

Second largest methane release ever

According to the AAAS report, the Porter Ranch leak lasted 112 days and released a total of 97,100 tons of methane into the atmosphere. This release of methane is the second-largest of its kind ever recorded in the U.S., surpassed by only one event — the collapse of an underground storage facility in Moss Bluff, TX in 2004.

Staggering statistics

The leak effectively doubled the leak rate of all other sources in the Los Angeles Basin combined. Additionally, at its height, the Porter Ranch leak rate more than doubled that of the next largest point source in the U.S. – an underground coal mine in Alabama – by over a factor of 2.

Even more alarming was the finding that the Porter Ranch site leak rates were comparable to total emission rates of entire oil and gas production regions in the U.S. According to the AAAS, the overall methane release from this one leak will “substantially impact the state of California greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets for the year.”

The Aliso Canyon storage facility, is just one of [link url=”https://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/natural_gas/analysis_publications/ngpipeline/undrgrnd_storage.html” title=”400 underground natural gas storage reservoirs across the U.S.“]

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