SoCal storm challenges emergency gas leak repair from abandoned oil well in Newport Beach

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. () — Despite around-the-clock efforts, crews in Newport Beach have yet to fix a gas leak from an abandoned oil well. It’s caused two homes to be red-tagged and now the incoming storm is posing new challenges for crews.

Storm preparations are underway as crews position pumps across Balboa Island and the Peninsula.

“Most of the homes in this area are considered in a flood zone,” said resident Marie Little.

One of those pumps is going right next to Little’s home on the canal, where she has lived since 1986.

“Every year, someone on our street gets their lower level flooded,” Little said. “We’ve never had that happen, but the neighbor next door has been flooded three times.”

Other pumps are flanking the 110-foot oil rig that still sits in the middle of a neighborhood. For more than two weeks, emergency crews have been working around the clock to seal up the abandoned 1920-era oil well that caused a methane gas leak.

“We were going to be done before Christmas, but they couldn’t get into the old pipe,” said Newport Beach Utilities Director Mark Vukojevic. “So we’ve moved on to our plan B operation which is what we call a twin parallel pipe. So they’ve drilled down to that 850 feet, so we have a hole that’s side-by-side, so there will be two pipes next to each other to cement that in, and then we fully kind of stabilize the situation.”

The crews are already planning for a 36-hour pause from Christmas Eve to the morning of December 26, then hope to scale back operations next week and be completely cleared out of the area after the New Year. But the weather could bring further delays.

“Workers just have to work just a little bit slower in the rain too. No one wants to slip, you know, even the pipes themselves now all of a sudden become extra slippery,” Vukojevic said.

The biggest risk for potential flooding comes during high tide Wednesday at around 10:30 a.m., and when there is a 100-foot metal structure, possible lighting is something else crews are paying attention to with this storm.