Seven homes on Newport Beach’s Balboa Peninsula remained under evacuation orders Friday as crews worked to mitigate a methane leak caused by oil seeping from an abandoned well beneath one of the affected properties.
According to the city, a local emergency was declared on Wednesday due to the methane leak believed to have been caused by the well beneath the home at 3606 Marcus Ave. That property and six others were all red-tagged, declaring them temporarily uninhabitable.
The city declared a local emergency on Wednesday due to the methane leak, and the evacuation orders were issued Thursday.
Newport Beach Fire Chief Jeff Boyles told The Orange County Register the home above the abandoned well has been dealing with oil seepage for the past few months. He said the well is about 800 feet deep, and it was capped in the 1920s. It’s unclear what caused it to begin leaking.
The result, however, was a pressurized release of methane and hydrogen sulfide, raising the risk of a possible explosion of the gas is ignited in any way.
City crews installed pipes on Thursday designed to vent the gas and relieve the pressure building below ground.
Boyles told The Register that if the venting process is successful, the residents would likely be permitted to return. It was unclear when that determination would be made.
“Until we get that pressure relieved, we don’t feel comfortable letting the residents back in,” he told the paper. “It’s like a volcano basically. We’ve never experienced this before.”
There were no immediate reports of any injuries.