Utility Used Contaminated Gas, PUC Says

A state Public Utilities Commission report has accused Southern California Gas Co. of ignoring health risks by buying and distributing gas drawn from a landfill and contaminated with vinyl chloride and other carcinogens.

The gas--created by decomposed waste--was extracted from the Operating Industries Inc. landfill in Monterey Park from 1978 to 1986 by Getty Synthetic Fuels, which also processed it for sale to the utility.

Monterey Park Mayor Christopher Houseman, citing the commission staff report, called Wednesday for an investigation to find out how many people were exposed to contaminated gas and whether it has caused health problems. Houseman said the PUC report is “very disturbing and in some instances can be said to be shocking.”

Diluted by Natural Gas

But Roy M. Rawlings, gas company vice president, said gas from the dump never went directly to customer homes, but was diluted with natural gas before it entered the system. Vinyl chloride, an industrial chemical used in making plastic products, has been identified as a human carcinogen. Rawlings said it was never detected in gas company pipelines away from the dump.

He said vinyl chloride was occasionally found at levels of about 1 part per million at the point where it entered the gas system.

“We could barely measure it at the landfill,” he said. “I don’t think there is any likelihood of anybody getting any measurable amount elsewhere.”

And even if a trace amount of vinyl chloride somehow went into a home, Rawlings said, tests conducted for the gas company show that it would have been burned without causing harm.

Margaret C. Felts, an environmental engineer employed as a consultant to the PUC, said there is no safe level of exposure to vinyl chloride. “Since vinyl chloride is clearly established as a harmful gas in any quantity,” she said, the gas company could have rejected gas from the landfill as a “clear risk” to its customers.

The PUC report said that benzene also was found in the landfill gas, but the gas company said it never detected benzene in any gas delivered to customers.

The disclosure that gas purchased from the landfill was contaminated came in a report by the PUC’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates and grew out of its review of gas company expenditures.

Malcolm M. McCay, a regulatory analyst, reported to the PUC that consultants hired by the gas company in 1983 confirmed that vinyl chloride was present in “significant levels.” After the presence of vinyl chloride was confirmed, McCay said, the company continued to buy landfill gas, but diverted it into its main distribution line to dilute it and then sought an agreement with Getty to assume liability for the presence of vinyl chloride.

Rawlings said the gas company bought about 1 million cubic feet of gas a day from the landfill, which was a fraction of the 2.5 billion cubic feet purchased for the system daily.

McCay said the gas company’s decision “to continue taking the landfill gas after confirming the hazardous nature of its toxic content was clearly imprudent and unreasonable.”

The gas company ended its contract with Getty in 1986 by paying Getty nearly $7.4 million. But Rawlings said termination of the contract had nothing to do with the quality of the gas. The contract was terminated, he said, because other sources of gas were cheaper. The gas company is seeking to pass the cost of buying out the contract to its customers but the PUC staff has objected, arguing that the gas company could have canceled the contract without penalty because the gas was of such poor quality. The PUC has not yet acted on the gas company request.

The landfill was closed in 1984 and is now being cleaned up by the Environmental Protection Agency.