Gas leak help!

[irishbosoxfan]

Our community had a leak/spill on Sunday of what they're saying was only the additive to gas to make it smell mercaptan.

They started out by telling us nothing except "natural gas smell" and that it is "harmless, non toxic and non flammable".

Since then they had stopped with the non flammable but are sticking to the harmless and non toxic.

They told us to contact our local gas company with questions but we don't have one as the community provides our gas. I contacted the local gas company and they told me it's a chemical called Ethyl Mercaptan that's added to their gas to give it the smell but since they don't deal with our community they couldn't confirm 100% that is what they use.

I did a ton of reading for different gas companies and all the ones I found have safety sheets for ethyl mercaptan listed on their websites. And all those sheets say it's a hazardous chemical. OSHA and the CDC lists it as a hazardous chemical.

Our community has so far been "unable" to produce an MSDS for this "harmless, non toxic mercaptan".

I know the posters here have a vast knowledge base to draw from so I'm hoping you can offer some help.

Do any of you know of a non-toxic mercaptan? Can you please post links to where I can read the information for myself.

Any and all information you can offer to me on this issue would be appreciated. We breathed this smell in for hours and all of us had side effects from it.

 

[Jey12]

http://www.mathesongas.com/pdfs/msds/MAT09070.pdf

You'll find the MSDS sheet here.

 

[irishbosoxfan]

http://www.mathesongas.com/pdfs/msds/MAT09070.pdf

You'll find the MSDS sheet here.

I have that one. All the ones I found said the same as the one above. I'm hoping someone has some knowledge of a harmless variety of mercaptan.

 

[irishbosoxfan]

LOL! See I knew they were yanking my chain! It's been 2 hours and not one person has posted with a link to a harmless mercaptan!

 

[scrapquitler]

LOL! See I knew they were yanking my chain! It's been 2 hours and not one person has posted with a link to a harmless mercaptan!

According to Wikipedia, adding it to natural gas is pretty standard. What I read makes it sound like it is harmful "in high concentration"
Here's what I read:

The United States material safety data sheet (MSDS) lists methanethiol as a colorless, flammable gas with an extremely strong and repulsive smell. At very high concentrations it is highly toxic and affects the central nervous system. Its penetrating odor provides warning at dangerous concentrations. An odor threshold of 0.002 ppm has been reported. The United States OSHA Ceiling Limit is listed as 10 ppm.

Cylinder of methanethiol gas
Methanethiol is mainly used to produce methionine, which is used as a dietary component in poultry and animal feed. Methanethiol is also used in the plastics industry and as a precursor in the manufacture of pesticides. It is also released as a decay product of wood in pulp mills. Due to the extremely low odor threshold of thiols in general, they may be added to otherwise odorless gases such as natural gas, enabling people to detect leaks by smell.

Since Natural gas is odorless, they have to add something to it so that you will notice if there is a leak. Presumably, this additive is much less harmful and less likely to cause ill effects than the natural gas fumes would be.

Just because the chemcial sheet lists hazards, doesn't mean that everyone is affected by them the same way (Look at the side effects list of ANY drug, they list side effects that very few people ever suffer, but they have to list any possible efects.

You had some effects from breathing it and obviously you are concerned about that, but really, the smell of perfume affects some people, too. That doesn't make it a hazardous chemical.

The bottom line is that they put this stuff in the natural gas (and propane, too) because that is less harmful than the natural gas would be.

 

[sam_gordon]

Our community had a leak/spill on Sunday of what they're saying was only the additive to gas to make it smell mercaptan.

They started out by telling us nothing except "natural gas smell" and that it is "harmless, non toxic and non flammable".

Since then they had stopped with the non flammable but are sticking to the harmless and non toxic.

They told us to contact our local gas company with questions but we don't have one as the community provides our gas. I contacted the local gas company and they told me it's a chemical called Ethyl Mercaptan that's added to their gas to give it the smell but since they don't deal with our community they couldn't confirm 100% that is what they use.

I did a ton of reading for different gas companies and all the ones I found have safety sheets for ethyl mercaptan listed on their websites. And all those sheets say it's a hazardous chemical. OSHA and the CDC lists it as a hazardous chemical.

Our community has so far been "unable" to produce an MSDS for this "harmless, non toxic mercaptan".

I know the posters here have a vast knowledge base to draw from so I'm hoping you can offer some help.

Do any of you know of a non-toxic mercaptan? Can you please post links to where I can read the information for myself.

Any and all information you can offer to me on this issue would be appreciated. We breathed this smell in for hours and all of us had side effects from it.

Who is "they"? By "community" do you mean town, city, subdivision? Whoever it is gets their gas from SOMEWHERE.

 

[irishbosoxfan]

According to Wikipedia, adding it to natural gas is pretty standard. What I read makes it sound like it is harmful "in high concentration"
Here's what I read:

The United States material safety data sheet (MSDS) lists methanethiol as a colorless, flammable gas with an extremely strong and repulsive smell. At very high concentrations it is highly toxic and affects the central nervous system. Its penetrating odor provides warning at dangerous concentrations. An odor threshold of 0.002 ppm has been reported. The United States OSHA Ceiling Limit is listed as 10 ppm.

Cylinder of methanethiol gas
Methanethiol is mainly used to produce methionine, which is used as a dietary component in poultry and animal feed. Methanethiol is also used in the plastics industry and as a precursor in the manufacture of pesticides. It is also released as a decay product of wood in pulp mills. Due to the extremely low odor threshold of thiols in general, they may be added to otherwise odorless gases such as natural gas, enabling people to detect leaks by smell.

Since Natural gas is odorless, they have to add something to it so that you will notice if there is a leak. Presumably, this additive is much less harmful and less likely to cause ill effects than the natural gas fumes would be.

Just because the chemcial sheet lists hazards, doesn't mean that everyone is affected by them the same way (Look at the side effects list of ANY drug, they list side effects that very few people ever suffer, but they have to list any possible efects.

You had some effects from breathing it and obviously you are concerned about that, but really, the smell of perfume affects some people, too. That doesn't make it a hazardous chemical.

The bottom line is that they put this stuff in the natural gas (and propane, too) because that is less harmful than the natural gas would be.

The red above is my issue.

methanethiol
1. a flammable gas used in the manufacture of pesticides and fungicides. Called also methyl mercaptan.
2. an inflammable gas with the odor of rotten cabbage. Produced in the intestine by the actions of anaerobic bacteria on albumin.
3. a toxic metabolite of methionine that induces hepatic coma and encephalopathy.


Ethyl Mercaptan is actually ethanethiol.

http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/r?dbs+hsdb:@term+@na+Ethanethiol

My family wasn't the only ones affected by the leak/spill whatever it was. I found a group on Facebook who were speaking of the leak and what they experienced with it.


I'm still hoping someone can find a harmless mercaptan as I have as of yet been unable to.

 

[irishbosoxfan]

Who is "they"? By "community" do you mean town, city, subdivision? Whoever it is gets their gas from SOMEWHERE.

Exactly. And as of close of business today I still don't know who provides our gas.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

They add it to natural gas so you smell it before the natural gas builds up to harmful concentrations.

I'm still hoping someone can find a harmless mercaptan as I have as of yet been unable to.

Unless the leak was located in your house and you didn't get out of it, or you decided to camp out right on top of the leak, it is very unlikely that you were exposed to harmful concentrations.

 

[tvguy]

Exactly. And as of close of business today I still don't know who provides our gas.

I thought you said your community provided it. Who do you pay your gas bill to?

 

[irishbosoxfan]

They add it to natural gas so you smell it before the natural gas builds up to harmful concentrations.


Unless the leak was located in your house and you didn't get out of it, or you decided to camp out right on top of the leak, it is very unlikely that you were exposed to harmful concentrations.

The recommended exposure limit is a ceiling value of 15 minutes at .5ppm. I have not been told what the exact ppm were from the spill.

But I can tell you we were breathing it in for over 6 hours.

We also haven't been told where exactly the spill occured but I can tell you that when I spoke with OSHA they told me that ethyl mercaptan is heavier than air and the fact that my house resides at the lowest lying area of my community had a lot to do with why we were inundated with it for as long as we were. That old saying about crap rolling down hill came to mind.

I had asked them about a non-toxic mercaptan but they didn't have anything on one as they deal with hazardous chemicals in the workplace.

So that was why I asked here if anyone had any knowledge of a harmless non-toxic mercaptan as I've exhausted every avenue I can think of.

 

[irishbosoxfan]

I thought you said your community provided it. Who do you pay your gas bill to?

Our community does provide it. We don't pay a gas bill. It is included as part of our housing. I have no idea who they get it from.