MUSEUM FEELS HEAT FROM METHANE

When methane gas exploded in a Fairfax shopping center this spring, the repercussions were felt throughout Los Angeles. Officials at the County Museum of Art, where an accident would be especially disastrous because of the accumulated art treasures, have always known about the possibility of methane infiltration and its potential for damage.

Their institution, after all, is right next to the tar pits in Hancock Park, a bubbling reminder of what might be seething underground.

Long before the March 24 gas explosion that injured 22 people less than half a mile away, museum employees had been noticing bubbles of tar in the shallow decorative pools of water that until 1975 surrounded the three-building complex. (Methane, which is colorless, odorless, flammable--and invisible--is a natural byproduct of decaying carbons, such as underground tar or crude oil.)

“Methane,” says museum director Earl A. (Rusty) Powell III, almost as easily as if he were discussing French Impressionists, “is a natural byproduct of organic composition. The tar pits are clear evidence of that. . . .

“I don’t believe they have ever drilled here; I don’t believe the (Hancock) park has ever been a site for drilling. We don’t have the problem that there was at 3rd and Fairfax, being above an old well. Ours (the site) is natural.”

Geologists believe that the Fairfax explosion happened because of a buildup of methane over abandoned oil wells. They are concerned that the old oil fields are beginning to repressurize themselves--a potentially dangerous situation where there is above-ground development. Nevertheless, even at the museum, which is not believed to be situated over an oil well, precautions have been taken.

Construction of the museum began in 1961 on 5 1/2 acres at the southwestern section of Hancock Park and was completed in 1965. When the Sculpture Garden was installed in 1975, eliminating the pools, county engineers installed a pump system in a special room at the request of museum officials because of concern about methane. Any methane that had accumulated was evacuated through an opening in the flagpole, a museum spokeswoman said.

The pump regularly worked the substrata--or dirt--pumping out any methane gas that was collecting. The flagpole is no longer there because the area is the construction site for the new Anderson Gallery, which will house modern and contemporary art.

“We never knew how much, if any, methane was eliminated because, after all, the gas is invisible,” a museum spokesman said.

Meanwhile, museum officials had already provided other methods of methane detection. In 1972, 14 monitoring stations were placed in various parts of the museum buildings. These extend through the regular and floating foundations and into the soil under the buildings. County engineers come out every three months with methane detection devices to measure gas levels.

“We’ve got sensors,” Powell says, “and there has never been any evidence of buildup.”

In 1982, a methane monitoring device was also installed in the Conservation Center. It is set to give out an audible alarm before a danger level is reached. It, too, has never gone off.

The new Anderson Gallery at the Wilshire Boulevard entrance and the Pavilion for Japanese Art in the northeast corner of the museum complex will both have an automatic computer system for methane detection in all rooms, registering back at a central security console room.

On March 26, two days after the Fairfax explosion, the Board of Supervisors at its regular Tuesday meeting unanimously passed a resolution by Supervisor Kenneth Hahn to look into the feasibility of placing methane monitors in all cultural and recreational facilities in the area. That study is now under way.

“We need to know,” said Supervisor Ed Edelman, whose district includes the Fairfax area, “where these monitors are needed and how much it will cost. We’re concerned about the potential danger to people and property--not just property.”