Open thread for night owls: Democracy Now! interviews Erin Brockovich about California methane leak

Amy Goodman and Juan González of Democracy Now! interviewed Erin Brockovich, the renowned consumer advocate, Wednesday about the disastrous methane leak in southern California. An excerpt: 

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to what’s being called the nation’s biggest environmental disaster since the 2010 BP oil spill. A runaway natural gas leak above Los Angeles has emitted more than 150 million pounds of methane since late October. Thousands of residents in the community of Porter Ranch have been evacuated. Two schools have been closed and more than 2,000 families forced into temporary housing. The leak is coming from a natural gas storage facility owned by the Southern California Gas Company, or SoCalGas. The exact cause is unknown, but it’s believed that well casing was breached deep below the ground. Adding to the confusion, the methane is invisible to the eye, so residents can’t see the fumes causing them headaches and nosebleeds. [...]

AMY GOODMAN: A time-lapsed infrared image makes visible the leak of the methane gas. According to California’s air quality regulators, the leak accounts for 25 percent of daily greenhouse gas emissions in the state—about the same amount of emissions as driving 160,000 cars for a year or consuming 90 million gallons of gas. Erin Brockovich, you have called this the worst environmental disaster since the BP oil spill of 2010. Talk about the scope of this.

ERIN BROCKOVICH: The scope of it is enormous. And there is another videotape out there that really helps us see pollution, because I think we can’t see it, so therefore we don’t always think that it’s real. And it’s amazing. It looks like a volcano that’s just erupting, that won’t stop. And when you fly over and you have the right lenses and you can—because methane, you know, the gases, you can’t see. But as they use the right screen, you can actually see that it’s like a black plume of smoke through there that just continues to billow out. And the magnitude of it is enormous.

You know, BP was something that they couldn’t stop, that was way deep in the earth, which is exactly what’s happening out here. And as we begin to peel back the layers of the onion, if you will, and find out what happened and why we’re in this type of situation, the idea that they have safety valves in place at 8,000 feet down, that Southern Cal Gas removed and never replaced, which would have prevented this type of catastrophic disaster, is mind-blowing. And so, you’re talking billions of cubic feet of gas under there, and all of this methane, day in and day out, is just billowing out of this site, that’s infecting a very large landmass, is an ongoing, constant assault to the community and a huge square mileage. We’re working with experts now to take all of the information so we can actually see an air plume and the magnitude of how far this has gone.

But this is going to continue. It’s been going on for months. It’s going to continue to go on for more months. As you said, it’s going to contribute to what? One-quarter of all of those emissions for the state of California. It’s outrageous. It’s frightening, at its best. It’s horribly concerning to this community. They are sick. And the impacts keep going on. And that’s what makes it so catastrophic. And it’s frightening for us to have a company like this, where you can’t get down there, and you’ve removed a valve, you didn’t replace that valve, and you now don’t have the ability to stop this for half a year or longer—is a bad scenario.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Erin Brockovich, how transparent has the company been about exactly where the leak is and what it’s going to have to do now to get to it?

ERIN BROCKOVICH: Well, I don’t know that they’ve been that transparent as at all. And I think David [Balen] can certainly tell you, as a homeowner and a family there, where their delays are. I’ll tell you, as we back this up and start looking at what they didn’t do, how that’s going to change regulation, how it’s going to help us look at—we need better enforcement around these facilities before we have a disaster that’s even bigger than this one. They are not that informative to the community about where their monitoring sites are.

When you do look at it, it’s certainly not that reasonable, because they’re really not telling you what they’re doing or where they’re monitoring—by way of example, that they are continually finding persistently high levels, at their different monitoring locations, of sulfur, which is very important. I have a sulfur allergy. Many people do. Long term, that can cause health impacts. They’re also finding hydrocarbons, but they’re not very forthwith about what it is they’re finding, but they’re finding it in high concentrations.

And this community needs to know the truth. And if we don’t have it, nobody can protect them. So I do not feel that Southern Cal Gas has been that transparent at all about what they’ve done in the past and what they’re doing today. [...]

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BLAST FROM THE PAST

At Daily Kos on this date in 2002—Southern anti-Americanism:

At a time when any criticism of Bush's war effort is met with charges of anti-Americanism, how do Southerners get away with celebrating the Confederacy?

What can be more un-American than wearing the symbol of the rebel group that sought to destroy the United States, and build a new nation based on the subjugation of an entire race?

Put a little differently—what is the difference between wearing a Confederate flag, and wearing a t-shirt with Osama Bin Laden's mug on it? Or, to be ultra contemporary, an Iraqi flag? All three represent enemies of the United States.

So once again, how do Dixie lovers get away with it?

On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin rounds up 2016 news. Luntz happy to profit from the Trumpster fire. Christie has more plane troubles. Adelson’s fake journo. Joan McCarter on next pointless Congressional session, the nutter caucus for Cruz, and Idaho’s NYE potato drop!

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