ORANGE COVE – From outside the Orange Cove Branch Library, on the sidewalk along Park Boulevard, two Orange Cove residents set up a table and tent in the sun and asked those walking, biking and driving by to sign their petition.
After about four hours on Feb. 21, 154 community members had put their names down. They had contributed to just one of the many ways residents have been telling their city government that they don’t want the Southern California Gas Company to conduct a hydrogen blending demonstration project in their town.
Estela Juarez and Erika Gutierrez weren’t getting paid for the time they spent doing this on Saturday afternoon, but they didn’t care. They were out there because they love Orange Cove and they don’t want to see it be used for someone else’s gain.
“I don’t want to be someone’s data so that they could get richer and where, at the end, it could risk my health,” Juarez said.
The two are part of a larger community group called Orange Cove United, which has been working with advocacy groups Cultiva la Salud and Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability for almost two years to voice strong opposition to the hydrogen blending demonstration project.
Although SoCalGas presented its hydrogen blending proposal at an Orange Cove City Council meeting open to the public in November 2023, many residents did not learn about the project until the spring of 2024. Juarez said that even now, she talks to people who say they haven’t heard anything about it.
“It’s like you’re not letting us voice, you’re not giving us an opportunity to say either yes or no, you’re not giving us an opportunity where we hear the pros and cons,” Juarez said. “And so that’s why we’re here today, and since you’re not giving us the opportunity, we just don’t want it.”
The project in question is being proposed by SoCalGas as part of a larger push from the state of California to have gas utilities reduce their carbon emissions. One way the utilities believe they can do that is by adding hydrogen gas to their blend of natural gas because hydrogen gas does not produce carbon when it burns.
In order for the utilities to do this, they first need to get permission from the California Public Utilities Commission and set a statewide injection standard for how much hydrogen gas can be safely blended into the natural gas supply.
To determine that injection standard, the CPUC sponsored a study from the University of California Riverside on hydrogen blending. The results of the study determined that real-world demonstrations of hydrogen blending are needed to ensure it is safe to do across the entire state.
This is where Orange Cove comes into play, as SoCalGas believes the city’s infrastructure is ideal for the demonstration project. Residents, however, aren’t so sure.
Local opposition
Those who oppose the project are deeply concerned about the impacts that it could have to their health and the overall safety of their community. They would prefer to have the ability to opt out if the project moves forward, but the only way that is possible is for them to convert all of their household appliances to electric.
Without being able to opt out, residents want clear guarantees from SoCalGas that the company will pay for anything that might break in their homes as a result of the hydrogen blending demonstration project, regardless of how likely that could be. Juarez said Orange Cove residents don’t have hundreds of dollars laying around that they can use for new ovens or repairs to the pipes in their homes.
Juarez said she isn’t against the city evolving, trying new things or creating something spectacular. What she is against is human experimentation.
“Our lives matter, they really do,” Juarez said. “My life today matters, future generations matter, generations that’ve been here in the past, they matter, but also the investments we’ve made in our homes, they matter.”
Beyond their health and safety concerns, residents are frustrated with the city and representatives from SoCalGas for not listening to them. Gutierrez said she first found out about the project due to a connection to Cultiva la Salud, not from the city. Now, when she tries to talk to representatives from the city about it, she gets shut down.
As they await a decision on the project from the CPUC, Juarez said Orange Cove United will continue to engage with their neighbors, inform them of the proposed project and ask the city to stop it.
“We decided to come out and be like, ‘Hey, we’re not silent,’” Juarez said. “There’s a group of us who’ve been speaking, … and we’re gonna show you that it’s not scary to stand up, it’s not scary to tell the mayor, ‘listen.’ That doesn’t cost anything.”
Residents can also add their names to the petition through an online form.
