Residents of Teague, Texas were concerned as many were smelling Natural Gas throughout the entire city Friday, December 4, 2020.
Luckily, the smell was not coming from a gas leak, but instead from a chemical spill of mercaptan, which is an odorant.
Natural Gas does not have a color or smell, and it not easy to detect, so an odorant that smells of sulfur and/or that highly recognizable rotting egg smell is added to make it detectable in case of a leak.
Overtime more odorant needs to be added to keep the smell in the gas, and the workings were doing exactly that when some accidently got away.
The odorant will dissipate with time and wind, and it does not cause any harm except for having to tolerate the smell.
Larry Ball, Manager of Public Affairs in this region with Atmos, explained that, “Every person who calls to report the smell of gas, we are going out and checking to make sure they do not have a leak, to keep everyone safe.”
There was no gas leak, no emergency, nothing harmful and everything was under control.
