Gas leaks in Calif., Ala. drew varied response

Poor town complains that the affluent were treated better

EIGHT MILE, Ala. — When methane started leaking out of a well at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility outside Los Angeles last October, noxious fumes blanketed the nearby Porter Ranch neighborhood for months. Residents complained of nausea, nosebleeds and vomiting; more than 8,000 families were forced out of their homes by the stench of the chemical odorant added to natural gas to help detect leaks.

Two thousand miles away, in a poor Alabama community, residents are complaining of similar symptoms after lightning struck equipment at an underground pipeline. An estimated 500 gallons of the same chemical spilled into the soil and groundwater, according to state environmental officials.

But, unlike in affluent, predominantly white Porter Ranch, residents in Eight Mile have been largely ignored, stuck for eight years with the stifling rotten egg stench that still hovers over the low-income, mostly African-American enclave just north of the Gulf of Mexico.

Residents say there have been no relocations to hotels or rented homes. No transfers to schools out of harm’s way. No U.S. Cabinet members swooping in to investigate. No national media hordes.

“Because we don’t have the financial wherewithal to put pressure on these people, they simply turn their heads,” said Eight Mile resident Carletta Davis, one of hundreds of people suing Mobile Gas Service Corp. over the leak of the chemical mercaptan. “Our children are sick. … It’s absolutely an outrage.”

The two leaks have another thing in common: San Diego-based Sempra Energy owns and operates Aliso Canyon and, for most of the eight years since the lightning strike, it also owned the Eight Mile facility.

Sempra spokesman Art Larson referred all questions to Mobile Gas. He said the Eight Mile leak was discovered a few months before Sempra acquired the Alabama utility in October 2008; it sold the company last month. Mobile Gas declined to comment because of pending litigation.

At least three lawsuits out of 14 filed by hundreds of Eight Mile residents are still pending, according to Sempra Energy securities filings. The residents allege damage to health and property values. In one typical case, the lawsuit accuses Mobile Gas of continuing to expose residents to “noxious mercaptan pollution, which is annoying, unpleasant, obnoxious, disturbing, and harmful to the plaintiffs’ health.”

Mobile Gas claimed that waste cleanup firms they had hired failed to get rid of the spilled chemical.