LA county official: The disastrous gas leak in LA is a 'mini Chernobyl'

It's been a staggering 81 days and counting since a natural gas well in a quiet, hilly town in northern Los Angeles began uncontrollably spewing hundreds of millions of pounds of methane - a potent greenhouse gas - into the sky.

California Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency there on January 6, 2016.

According to a recent air-based survey of the plume, scientists estimate that a whopping 160 million pounds of the gas have leaked from the well.

Activists and officials have deemed this one of the worst environmental catastrophes in recent years, and it's drawing comparisons to some of the most egregious man-made mishaps.

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich labeled this one of the worst environmental disasters since the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which for nearly three months leaked more than 3 million barrels of oil into the gulf. Even today, nearly five years later, oil still dots beaches along the Louisiana coast with tar, choking mangrove trees and sickening dolphins.

In a public hearing Jan. 9, 2016, L.A. County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich referred to the leak as a "mini Chernobyl," according to the Los Angeles Times. 

That's right, Antonovich is comparing the leak to the 1986 nuclear power plant disaster in Ukraine, which spewed radioactive material into the sky - killing two plant workers during the release and 28 people in the next few weeks due to acute radiation poisoning. It's considered one of the "most serious accidents in nuclear history."

What's worse, workers are not even close to stopping the flow in Porter Ranch.

The leak sprung from a Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) natural gas storage facility in Aliso Canyon on October 23, 2015. 

No one knows for sure how the leak happened, how much gas the well has lost, or how much more it will lose. But an aircraft flight through the gas plume on Janurary 7 hinted that the well has leaked at least 160 million pounds of methane since October.

To put that into perspective, that's equivalent to the annual emissions of about 382,000 passenger vehicles.

Again: The leak hasn't been stopped yet. It could take facility workers until the end of March - a staggering five months after the calamity began - to plug the well.

Residents claim the gas, which has drifted into surrounding neighborhoods, is sickening them with nausea, nosebleeds, and headaches. Thousands of people are displaced as a result.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, exposure to the chemical mercaptan, which is added to the gas to give it that quintessential (and detectable) sulfurous smell, can cause staggered gait, vomiting, irritation of the respiratory system, wheezing, rapid heart beat, arm and leg rigidity, bluish discoloration of the skin, and irritated eyes and mucous membranes.

Industrial exposures could even put someone in a coma and cause death by a blocked lung artery up to 28 days later.

While the human side-effects from the gas are temporary, the atmospheric damage from the leak is lasting.

Much like a blanket, greenhouse gases advance global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere. While methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, it is arguably worse for the environment. It doesn't stick around in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, but it locks heat it into our atmosphere more efficiently.

Experts estimate that methane can warm the planet tens, hundreds, or even thousands of times better than carbon dioxide can.

Methane, mercaptan, and other gases pouring from the well are invisible to the naked eye. But an infrared camera, operated by an Earthworks ITC-certified thermographer, was able to reveal the enormous methane plume in action on December 17:

SoCalGas crews are drilling a relief well that they will pump with fluids and cement to intercept and plug the flow of gas from the leaking well. The relief well is expected to be completed by late March, 2016.

The company issued a press release Janurary 6, 2016 in response to Gov. Brown's declaration of a state of emergency that day.

"Our focus remains on quickly and safely stopping the leak and minimizing the impact to our neighbors in Porter Ranch," SoCalGas' president and CEO Dennis Arriola said in the statement. "SoCalGas reaffirms our prior commitment to mitigate the environmental impact of the actual amount of natural gas released from the leak. We look forward to working with state officials to develop a framework that will achieve this goal."