(Bloomberg) — California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency to protect residents from natural gas that has been leaking from Sempra Energy's underground storage site near Los Angeles for more than two months.
Brown said he was directing state agencies to take additional measures to protect public health and safety, make sure Sempra is held financially accountable for the incident and strengthen the regulatory oversight of gas storage sites, according to a statement Wednesday.
The announcement comes as more than 2,000 families have been forced to temporarily relocate as a result of a leak detected on Oct. 23 and located a mile from the Porter Ranch neighborhood in Los Angeles. A broken well is emitting enough methane to fill the Empire State Building every day and has spewed at least 1.6 million metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the equivalent of driving 200,000 vehicles a year, the state has said.
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