The Cleveland Daily Banner Sunday, January 10, 2016 | Page 9

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Cleveland Daily Banner—Sunday, January 10, 2016—9

Debate over women in combat continues

AP Photo

A Sign declAreS the boundary line of the Southern California
Gas Co. gas fields where a gas well has been leaking methane daily
near the community Porter Ranch, Calif., Thursday. California Gov.
Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency over the massive natural-gas leak that has been spewing methane and other gases into a
Los Angeles neighborhood for months, sickening residents and forcing thousands to evacuate.

Invisible disaster drives
people from LA suburb
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Laura
Gideon and her family endured
the sickening stench from an
out-of-control natural gas leak
for about a month before they
could no longer tolerate the nausea, headaches and nosebleeds.
After she went to the emergency room in November vomiting and with a severe migraine,
Gideon, her husband and their
two children abandoned the only
home they’d ever known together
in the upscale Los Angeles suburb of Porter Ranch.
They moved in with her parents about 10 miles away to
await a fix that could still be
months away.
“We’re in mourning now,” she
said. “We didn’t ever want to
leave. We were in a nice gated
community. We were safe, you
know, supposedly good schools.
This wasn’t our plan.”
Thousands of her neighbors
have voluntarily followed suit in
an exodus from an invisible
threat that wafts occasionally
and doesn’t sicken everyone in its
path, though it continues to spew
enormous amounts of climatechanging methane.
The leak has cost the utility
$50 million so far and is expected
to balloon as the company tries a
tricky fix to plug a well deep
underground, while also shelling
out compensation for exasperated residents and fighting dozens
of lawsuits.
Gov. Jerry Brown declared an
emergency last week for the prolonged blowout that requires the
utility to cover the costs and
instructs state regulators to protect ratepayers.
The well is one of 115 in the
Santa Susana Mountains where
Southern California Gas Co., a
division of San Diego-based
Sempra Energy, stores natural
gas in a vacant oil field about a
mile and a half underground. It is
the largest natural gas storage
facility west of the Mississippi
River and can provide energy to
all of Southern California for a
month.
It has been gushing the equivalent of about a quarter of the
state’s daily output of methane,
along with other gases, since it
was reported Oct. 23. It is also
blamed for depositing tiny oil
droplets on cars and houses that
are about a mile away.
The hillside Porter Ranch community of about 30,000 people in
mostly single-family homes has
grown considerably in the three
decades since scenes in the
movie “E.T. the Extraterrestrial”
were filmed here.
Public health officials said
most of the gas is dissipating and
not causing long-term problems,
though many residents have left
because they doubt the air is
safe. Foul-smelling additives that
make highly flammable gas
detectable have been blamed for
maladies including irritated
throats, coughs and respiratory
problems.
“It’s like being in a disaster
area, but it’s not a disaster you
can see,” said Sue Hammarlund,
who has seen her share of
national disasters as a Red Cross
volunteer and has suffered from
headaches and nosebleeds
recently. “I think this is more
debilitating mentally.”
Two local schools nearest the
leak closed in December and
nearly 1,900 students will start
the year at different schools
Tuesday.
While more than 4,500 families
have either left or are on the
move, many have stayed behind
— either because they’re not
bothered by the smell, aren’t
worried or don’t want to hassle
with moving.
Bob Casselman has lived near
the entrance to the gas facility 43
years. His wife, Pat, has only
noticed the smell a few times and
had very few symptoms. The
retirees are concerned about the

impact on property values, but
they’re not moving.
“I can’t understand all these
people,” Bob Casselman said.
“Everybody wants a freebie ...
Unless something’s really bad,
we don’t complain.”
The company has apologized
for failing to disclose the leak
after residents began complaining about the smell and for reacting slowly to their concerns.
The incident is unprecedented
for a utility and it is “forging new
ground,” said Gillian Wright, a
SoCalGas vice president.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top
Marine general predicts that the
Defense Department’s vows to
maintain the same standards for
women and men in combat jobs
won’t last,