June 13, 2016 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

Although SoCalGas has insisted that the methane leak at the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility, which provides energy for 11 million customers in the Los Angeles area, is under control, the utility is not out of the woods.

Site of Aliso Canyon gas leak.  Click on image to enlarge. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Last week, the utility told customers it is committed to returning them to their homes safely, providing necessary resources to do that, working with investigators to determine the cause of leak and prevent future issues, ensuring the safety of wells at the facility and complying with all requirements concerning environmental emissions.

In addition to reliability concerns created by a moratorium on new gas for the storage facility until a major safety audit is done, the latest in the crisis is a petition to legislators.

The petition, started by clean energy advocacy group Climate Parents and delivered to legislators, has been signed by thousands of parents, grandparents and clean energy supporters. The group also sent the petition to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), demanding that the utility consider solar as an alternative solution to natural gas.

"Increasing solar capacity quickly to reduce reliance on natural gas from the dangerous Aliso facility is a smart, sensible solution that will help make solar lemonade from methane lemons," said John Friedrich, senior campaigner with Climate Parents, in a statement.

The petition referred to a proposal provided by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) that would continue the Solar Photovoltaic Program, which the CPUC is expected to vote on ending within the next 10 days. If continued, the program could bring on at least 10 MW of solar to make up for the Aliso loss.

For more:
- read the press release
- see the petition