Los Angeles – Yesterday, impacted residents and climate advocates gathered mere miles from SoCalGas’s Aliso Canyon gas storage facility – the site of the biggest methane and polytoxic blowout in U.S. history in 2015 – to call on Gov. Newsom to direct the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to shut down the facility by 2027. 

After several dozen Air Quality Management District (AQMD) notices, sent in recent months, warning of SoCalGas’ use of caustic chemicals that get airborne: “I wonder if this is the harbinger of the next disaster at that deteriorating and unneeded facility,” said Matt Pakucko, President and Co Founder of Save Porter Ranch.

Activists and impacted community members – donned in lab coats, to show that this is a public health problem – offered remarks and encouraged the public to call Governor Newsom’s office and demand he honors his promise to the community and directs the CPUC to shut this site down. This event happened just days before the CPUC is expected to announce their proposed timeline for shutting the facility down. 

In addition to this event, since the start of the month members of the public have made hundreds of calls and emails into the Governor’s office demanding he holds the CPUC to a 2027 shutdown timeline. 

“This is a chance for our Governor to hold firm to his promises to take on Big Oil and prioritize the solutions California needs: renewable, sustainable energy,” said Andrea Vega, Senior Southern California Organizer at Food & Water Watch. “But, it is also his chance to keep his promise to the residents of Porter Ranch, whose lives have been forever changed by the 2015 Aliso Canyon gas blowout and ongoing health issues. It has been nearly a decade since the disaster, and Governor Newsom has only walked back this promise. For him to truly deserve the climate legacy he is building for himself, he must shut down this dangerous, polluting facility.”