From CBS News:
LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles prosecutors filed misdemeanor criminal charges Tuesday against a utility for failing to immediately report a natural gas leak that has been gushing nonstop for nearly 15 weeks.
"While we recognize that neither the criminal charges nor the civil lawsuits will offer the residents of Los Angeles County a complete solution, it is important that Southern California Gas Co. be held responsible for its criminal actions," District Attorney Jackie Lacey said, according to CBS Los Angeles.
The leak has forced more than 4,400 families from their homes in the suburb of Porter Ranch
The charges came the same day the state attorney general joined a long line of others in suing the gas company for the blowout that has spewed more than 2 million tons of climate-changing methane since October.
www.cbsnews.com/…
So. Cal. Gas Co. could be fined $25,000 for each of the three days it waited to report the leak back in October, as well as $1,000 for each day the leak continues to spew.
That doesn’t sound like quite enough compensation, nor punishment, IMO, but the charges add heft to the string of lawsuits against So. Cal. Gas, for which the Company will likely have to spend millions in legal fees. So at least there’s that.