LOS ANGELES _ Southern California Gas Co. will pay $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by air quality regulators over the nearly four-month Aliso Canyon gas leak and will fund a study of potential community health impacts.
Under a settlement signed Wednesday with the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the utility will pay $5.65 million in emissions penalties, $1.6 million to reimburse the agency for air-monitoring costs and $250,000 for its legal fees.
The agreement dedicates $1 million to the air district-sponsored health study.
The gas company's Aliso Canyon storage facility above the Porter Ranch neighborhood of Los Angeles has been shut down since a well blowout in late October 2015 resulted in the worst methane leak in U.S. history.
The ruptured well was sealed in mid-February 2016, but not before releasing 109,000 metric tons of the potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
The invisible gas forced 8,000 residents to flee their homes and sickened many with headaches, nosebleeds and nausea.
While health officials have blamed those symptoms on odorants added to the gas, pollution monitoring also detected the carcinogen benzene and other toxic pollutants in the community's air during the leak.
The health study, agreed to last year by the gas company and required under an administrative order obtained by the air district, had been in limbo as the gas company and the agency wrangled over the cost.
In a statement, the air district said the study will include a more detailed assessment of residents' exposure to air pollution from the leak, a community health survey and "an analysis of potential associations between reported health effects and exposure to air pollutants."
"We are pleased to have worked with AQMD to settle this and other matters," Chris Gilbride, a spokesman for the utility, said in a statement.
The lawsuit filed by the South Coast air district in January 2016 alleged the gas company violated air quality rules and sought up to $250,000 in penalties for each day the leak continued.
The utility has faced numerous lawsuits from government agencies and residents and has disclosed spending hundreds of millions on relocation costs and other expenses related to the leak.
The deal comes a few weeks after state regulators announced the underground storage facility is safe to open at a diminished capacity.
The gas company has pushed to resume operations at Aliso Canyon, calling it essential for the region's energy supply.
Porter Ranch residents and some elected officials are fighting any additional gas injections at the facility until state investigators determine the cause of the leak, and many want the facility closed for good.
