Letters to the Editor: Methane gas leak underscores a threat that California needs to act on

To the editor: The methane leak that compelled Newport Seaside residents to evacuate their properties final week underscores the specter of decaying oil and gasoline infrastructure (“Methane gas leak leads to evacuations on a Balboa Peninsula street,” Oct. 23). It’s an issue California must take significantly.

Californians face an enormous risk from wells just like the one in Newport Seaside, which was reportedly plugged practically 100 years in the past — earlier than right this moment’s requirements for sealing wells have been in impact.

However much more urgently, California should cope with its nearly 90,000 unplugged oil and gasoline wells that each one have to be cleaned up. Greater than a 3rd of those already sit idle, a lot of which haven’t produced in a decade or extra. These wells can leak methane and harmful toxins like hydrogen sulfide and benzene that poison communities and the setting.

California lawmakers and regulators must act with urgency and ensure these idle wells are plugged to fashionable requirements.

Fortuitously, there’s a comparatively easy answer: Make operators plug their idle wells sooner. These wells introduced them immense earnings after they have been producing, and paying for cleanup needs to be their duty.

Cooper Kass, Los Angeles
This author is a employees legal professional on the Middle for Organic Variety’s Local weather Legislation Institute.