Gas blowout near Los Angeles leads to up to $1.8B settlement

By BRIAN MELLEY
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Attorneys for families sickened and forced from their Los Angeles homes after the nation’s largest-known natural gas leak say they’ve reached a settlement of up to $1.8 billion with a utility. The settlement announced Monday with Southern California Gas Co. and its parent company will compensate 35,000 plaintiffs from the 2015 blowout that took nearly four months to contain. The Aliso Canyon leak led to the largest-known release of methane in U.S. history and was blamed for sickening thousands of residents who moved out of homes near the San Fernando Valley to escape a sulfurous stench and maladies including headaches, nausea and nose bleeds.