(Wikimedia)
When USC senior Gina Oh's mom started looking to buy a new house three years ago, she wanted a backyard. She wanted a place big enough for her whole family. She wanted to be near her friends. What she did not want was to be caught in the middle of the biggest methane gas leak in the country's history.
The Porter Ranch gas leak dominated headlines for weeks, and although SoCal Gas reported the leak officially closed almost a month ago, residents are stuck with an uncertain future. Many families are questioning the health risks of staying, but the decision to leave their homes is not an easy one to make, especially with the city's property values dropping every day. The decision is especially difficult for Oh's mother, who planned to sell their home before the methane spill took over the city.
According to Gina, the family has been discussing where to go from here. "We have no idea what we're going to do now. I don't even know if we're going to get face value for what we bought the house for. It's still kind of up in the air; we talked about pros and cons moving forward," said Oh.
USC senior Gina Oh
Oh lives in Porter Ranch with her mother and aunt when she's not on campus. When she went home expecting a relaxing Thanksgiving break, her family learned that a SoCal Gas pipeline had burst five minutes from her house, spewing methane gas into the surrounding Aliso Canyon and into the neighborhood. Her family applied for relocation as soon as they learned of the leak, and they spent most of the holidays in a downtown LA hotel. According to Oh, the gas company relocated residents only within a certain zip code of the leak, and many families are still waiting to have their requests processed.
"For everything we have to pay first then get reimbursed, so I was on the phone with third parties that were hired by the gas company, as well as directly with the gas company, said Oh, who pointed out that the family has still not seen reimbursement for some of the costs. "I was constantly on the phone, all the time. It was really stressful."
SoCal Gas agreed to reimburse families for measures taken to safeguard their homes, and settled them in hotels for free. With the leak officially sealed, many families returned to Porter Ranch, but reports of continued illness led the company to grant dozens of families an extension on their relocation, meaning more time away from the home she loves.
"It was really inconvenient," said Oh, who goes home often now that the leak has been sealed. "We have air filters installed that filter out the methane gas. They're new. We were reimbursed by the gas company, so we had house weatherization. They made sure all the windows were pretty much locked down, and we had something installed in our ventilation like a little carbon filter - and all of this was reimbursed - but who knows if its actually working?"
(CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49138172)
Oh's mother moved to Porter Ranch from Arcadia around three years ago. When her two daughters left home for college, she decided to downsize, and started looking for the best place to buy.
After doing extensive research and consulting several friends who worked in real estate, the family decided on a house several miles from Aliso Canyon, which also happened to be the site of a considerably large natural gas storage facility, estimated by some to be the second-largest of its kind in the United States.
"The one thing we did not know was that there was a gas plant next to our house. My mom's friend is a realtor and she helped us look at lots of houses. She didn't even know that there was a gas reserve. It's part of a hiking trail, so Aliso Canyon Gas Facility is in Aliso Canyon Park. A lot of people didn't know," said Oh.
(LA Times/Wikimedia)
Although SoCal Gas kept its well under wraps, Oh now has begun to question its impact on her family. She remembered how she and her sister would often complain of lightheadedness when they came home.
"I feel like we used to always complain that whenever we came home that we felt really lightheaded and we never really knew why. Obviously there wasn't a gas leak two years ago, but maybe having a gas plant near us that we just didn't know about might have affected us."
Although methane gas can be deadly, the symptoms of methane gas poisoning are barely noticeable, and can include headaches, nausea and nosebleeds. Oh said her aunt had started getting regular nosebleeds in the fall, but because she had experienced them before, the family thought nothing of it.
"We didn't think much of it," said Oh. "The symptoms are so unnoticeable that it's like, 'oh, maybe I'm just really tired, or maybe I wasn't eating enough."
As SoCal Gas ends their relocation program and more people return home to work, Oh and her neighbors must weigh the health risk going forward.
"I do have concerns about it, but there haven't been a lot of studies on methane gas on the human body over a long period of time, so no one can confidently say that it will have a negative health effect, but no one can confidently say that it will have no effects, so that's the hard part about it, but I feel like it can't be good," she admitted.
(Earthworks/Flickr)
For Oh's mother, health is far from her biggest concern. In August, Mrs. Oh decided to move to Austin, Texas, where her oldest daughter Hannah works in design for IBM. She planned the move to coincide with Gina's graduation from USC this summer.
"We were going to put it on the market in April, and then sell it a couple of months after that," Gina Oh said wistfully, confessing, "We have no idea what the value of our house is anymore."
The move was supposed to be a good investment for Oh's mother. She liked Austin and recognized that property value in the Texas capitol would rise exponentially in the next few years. She planned on buying a house in Texas, living near her daughter for several years and selling the property at a profit before she moved back to California. However, the gas leak has made it all but impossible to sell her house in Porter Ranch.
According to Oh, "apparently the property value's supposed to be going down even more in the next few years than it is right now. It's just going to continue to decrease. So I'm debating, should I sell it now, or be stuck with this for at least another four years before she can get face value for it?'"
The Porter Ranch gas leak has left Oh in a situation that few residents in the residential neighborhood share, since many people come to the city for the long term, hoping to retire or raise a family. Although health concerns have had many people reconsidering their homes, low property values will make the decision for residents.
"I think as time passes - and it's been three or four months since the gas leak happened - it's easier to prioritize your comfort over your future health," said Oh.
With her mom's plans to go to Texas on hold, Oh said her family would most likely stay in the house while she looks for a job after graduation. When the largest methane gas leak in U.S. history happens a five-minute drive from your house, you have to roll with the punches. After all, she still has that backyard. Maybe someday, when the gas leak has blown over Porter Ranch, it will draw a buyer to the house just like it drew Oh and her family years ago.