Strong Gas Odor Permeates Manhattan

[AuGmENTor]

Law Enforcement Sources Tell WNBC.com It Does Not Appear To Be A Terror Attack

POSTED: 9:13 am EST January 8, 2007
UPDATED: 10:30 am EST January 8, 2007

NEW YORK -- People over a large part of New York City are smelling a gas odor, and authorities are scrambling to determine the source.

The Port Authority said it believes the gas leak is coming from Bleecker Street.

Law enforcement sources tell WNBC.com that this does not appear to be an act of terror.

Four city schools were evacuated due to the smell, but have since been let back in.

"The smell was very strong. It was very scary," said Yolanda Van Gemd, an administrator at ASA, a business school at Broadway and 34th Street, which was evacuated as a precaution.

The Fire Department began getting calls about the odor around 9 a.m., said spokesman Tim Hinchey.

PATH service has been suspended into the 33rd Street station, although the service was still running to the World Trade Center Station. F and V subway service has been suspended at 23rd Street.

Service is still going into the World Trade Center station.

People between Midtown and Battery Park are reported to be smelling the odor, which was also reported in New Jersey.

In Jersey City, Maria Pignataro, the spokeswoman for Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy, said officials were told the odor in their city was due to a gas leak in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

At NBC headquarters in Rockefeller Plaza, the odor is very strong. One person who works on the sixth floor at 30 Rockefeller Center said it was so strong that people are leaving the building.

At one major office building at 37th and 7th, employees have been told that Con Edison is looking into a smell, and they should remain inside until they hear otherwise.

Mayor Bloomberg is expected to be asked about it at a briefing with the media.

In August, a gaseous smell hit parts of Queens and Staten Island, sending seven people to the hospital.

Consolidated Edison officials had no immediate comment.

[AuGmENTor]

You'll all be happy to know that the EPA has ALREADY deemed the air safe to breath. Even though they have NO FUCKING IDEA what the smell is. I feel safer already. Anyone happen to know if FEMA happened to be doing any readiness exercises today in NYC?

[royster]

FEMA is now in lower Manhatten, passing out emergency duct tape and rolls of plastic. They are also handing out condoms, but do not be alarmed; the condoms are for emergency breathing aperatuses, and contain no spermicide.

[YouCrazyDiamond]

NYC Investigates Gas Leak Report; Search on for Odor (Update4)
(http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aV303bdeiAwY&refer=home)By Todd Zeranski

Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- New York had a ``small gas leak'' in Greenwich Village, and officials are working to determine the origin of an unusual odor reported over a wide area of Manhattan, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

New York Emergency Management Director Joseph Bruno said 27 people had called emergency services reporting that they were ``feeling ill from the smell,'' which was reported from Battery Park in Lower Manhattan to Midtown. The city's utility company disputed the report of a Greenwich Village gas leak.

The city's many air sensors aren't reporting any elevated gas levels, the mayor said in a televised news conference.

``The sensors do not show any high concentrations of natural gas that would give us cause to be concerned,'' he said. The leak's origin was at Bleecker Street and Sixth Avenue, he said.

``This is what we know: The smell is there, we don't know the source of it, it does not appear to be dangerous and some of the facilities that were shut down are now being reopened.''

Consolidated Edison Inc. spokesman Chris Ohlert said the company had ``no gas leaks on our system.'' Earlier reports about a gas leak on Bleeker Street were ``unfounded'' and the utility had no leads on where the smell originated, he said.

PATH commuter train service was restored as of 10:30 a.m., Steve Coleman, a spokeman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said. Two commuter lines from New Jersey into Manhattan were suspended earlier because of the investigation.

Bloomberg said the smell resembled mercaptan, a sulphur- based chemical compounded added to natural gas.

Natural gas and propane are naturally colorless and odorless. Mercaptan gives the gasses the distinctive smell of rotting vegetables that can be detected in case of gas leaks. In natural gas, mercaptan is injected directly into distribution pipes. Only very small quantities of the potent gas are required.

The mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

To contact the reporter on this story: Todd Zeranski in New York at tzeranski@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 8, 2007 13:30 EST

[Gold9472]

Who's got gas?

[YouCrazyDiamond]

:fart1:

Sorry, man.

[Gold9472]

HA! I don't think that smiley has ever been used.

[AuGmENTor]

Think maybe someone just released something to scare people, or maybe test circulation patterns?

[YouCrazyDiamond]

Interesting day so far:

Mercaptan odors in Manhattan.

Explosives (C-4) residue in Florida.

Dead birds in Texas.


All of this on the eve of the announcement of a troop surge (or "plus-up" according to CNN) from the WH.

[AuGmENTor]

Dead birds in Texas. ???

[YouCrazyDiamond]

Dead birds in Texas:

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/169003

[Chana3812]

Explosives (C-4) residue in Florida.



? ? ?

[AuGmENTor]

? ? ?

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sns-ap-miami-bomb-threat,0,7292253.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

[dtravni]

see www.madsenreport.com

to wit:


THE NEWS


January 8, 2007 -- The environmental "surge" you're not hearing anything about.


According to U.S. maritime industry sources, tanker captains are reporting an increase in onboard alarms from hazard sensors designed to detect hydrocarbon gas leaks and, specifically, methane leaks. However, the leaks are not emanating from cargo holds or pump rooms but from continental shelves venting increasing amounts of trapped methane into the atmosphere. With rising ocean temperatures, methane is increasingly escaping from deep ocean floors. Methane is also 21 more times capable of trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.


In fact, one of the major sources for increased methane venting is the Hudson Submarine Canyon, which extends 400 miles into the Atlantic from the New York-New Jersey harbor. Another location experiencing increased venting is the Santa Barbara Channel on the California coast.


http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/LNGTanker.jpg


Fuel tankers reporting increased methane venting from sea beds.


Meanwhile, a strong natural gas odor was reported this morning in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Jersey City, Weehawken, and Newark. The strong odor was also detected in Union City, Secaucus, and Hoboken. Last August, a similar unexplained gas odor sent people to the hospital in Staten Island and Queens. Although methane is odorless, natural methane venting is often accompanied by the venting of acrid hydrogen sulfide, a byproduct of bacterial decomposition.


The US Coast Guard sent a message to ships and tugs in the bay and ocean south of New York requesting any reports of the odor being detected at sea. There were also an unconfirmed report of a similar strong odor being detected this morning on the Delaware coast near Lewes. This morning, the prevailing winds in New York and New Jersey were southerly at 5 to 10 miles per hour.


In other global warming news, the warm temperatures on the U.S. East Coast are resulting in early blooming of the cherry trees and azaleas in Washington, DC and New York City, apple and peach trees in Maryland, and roses, forsythias, and crocuses in Connecticut. A number of people along the East Coast are suffering from allergies usually experienced in April. Monk parakeets from South America have invaded the Chicago area.


George W. Bush continues to insist that global warming is "silly science" based on "fuzzy math." Corporate news media masters are pressuring plastic-faced and neatly-coiffured TV weathermen to treat the current abnormal warm weather as an unexpected "gift" for their viewers. The latte-sipping and SUV-driving yuppies in Washington, DC are certainly taking the current weather abnormality in stride -- they almost appear ecstatic about the weather, obviously unaware that the future of our planet is hanging on a thread.


DT

[YouCrazyDiamond]

The above link goes to one of those bogus advertisement web sties. Here is a link that goes to Wayne's web site:

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

[dtravni]

oh yes, my mistake. v.solly.

DT

[AuGmENTor]

BELCHING BOG BLAMED FOR CITYWIDE GAS STINK

By TOM LIDDY, DAN KADISON and ANDY GELLER


January 9, 2007 -- Who cut the cheese?

New Jersey, apparently.

Across the length and breadth of Manhattan, people were asking, "What's that smell?" after a pungent odor like natural gas or rotten eggs blanketed the borough and northern New Jersey for three hours yesterday morning.

By evening, the answer seemed to be a stinky gas emitted by a New Jersey swamp or marsh.

"That's where our noses and instruments tell us" the smell was coming from, said Charles Sturcken, a spokesman for the city Department of Environmental Protection.

The theory is within "the realm of possibility," said Stephen Jones, a spokesman for the New Jersey office of Emergency Management.

The odor, which sparked fears of terrorism, had people jamming 911 and Con Ed lines from Battery Park to Inwood from river to river.

"It was really, really bad, so bad it gave me a headache," said Kate Browne, who lives in the West Village.

Alfred Stewart, 47, who lives in Chelsea, agreed.

"That smell was stinking. It smelled, like, toxic," he said. "If you stayed in it and held it enough, you probably would have gotten dizzy from it."

The odor disrupted mass transit during rush hour and forced brief evacuations of Macy's in Herald Square, several area schools and some Midtown skyscrapers.

The FDNY responded to 409 calls about the odor - with many residents fearing they had a gas leak.

Twelve people in the city were taken to hospitals complaining of breathing problems, as were seven people in northern New Jersey. People milled about outside evacuated buildings, asking: What is rotten in the City of New York? The answer seemed to be mercaptan, a gas that contains sulfur compounds and is added to natural gas so leaks can be identified. </B></I>