Porter Ranch residents want gas facility to remain closed, urge legislators to take it to Supreme Court

PORTER RANCH, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Residents in Porter Ranch said they will be speaking to local representatives in an attempt to take issue with the restart of the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility to the Supreme Court.

The facility was given the green light to restart operations in a controversial ruling Saturday night. Los Angeles County had been granted a temporary restraining order that halted the reopening of the facility on Friday, but the stay was dissolved the next day.

SoCalGas had filed a motion opposing the stay, which resulted in the state's 2nd Court of Appeals dissolving the initial ruling.

Aliso Canyon was shut down for 18 months following the nation's largest methane gas leak that caused thousands of families to temporarily relocate from their Porter Ranch homes.

The utility said state regulators determined the facility is safe, but many residents said they don't believe that.

"This is cut and dry. The facility isn't safe. No one has comprehensively said it is, and yet here we are, with the pressure to reopen a facility that in 630-plus days has shown is not needed at all," Andrew Krowne said.

Still, not everyone in the neighborhood is opposed to the facility. Roman Jerabek lives right across the street from it and said he understands why the utility wants to restart operations.

"It's something we need to have so shutting it down would, I would think, cause a real increase in gas price," he said.