Gas Odorizers May Not Be Glamorous, But They're Life Savers

There's nothing glamorous about gas odorizers. It's just stuff you put in gas to make it stink. But it's a life-saver, and it was a horrendous natural gas leak explosion with the loss of at least 298 children and teachers, way back in 1937, that brought gas odorizers into existence.

It was a beautiful school in New London, Texas, a wealthy rural community, and it was destroyed in an instant when a shop teacher turned on a sanding machine, igniting the natural gas that pooled around him. The roof fell in and the walls collapsed, with the explosion heard for miles. The response was immediate and enormous with the Texas Rangers and highway patrol, hospital personnel and police officers, even the Boy Scouts and members of the Red Cross, attending the scene to lend whatever assistance they could.

More than half the 500 students and forty teachers died, with just 130 students escaping without serious injury. Most of the senior class was gone. The actual toll may have been much higher as children of transitory oil field workers frequently attended the school, but of course all records were lost in the explosion.

As a result of this horrific event, state laws were passed that require natural gas products to be mixed with a distinct odor as a warning that gas is leaking. Had there been such an odor, the gas leak under the school (which had been accumulating for several days) would have been quickly noticed and repaired, with no loss of life.

The most common odorizer is a liquid called mercaptan, which is added to gas lines. The odor is quite strong, like garlic, and can sometimes be repulsive -- it's related to the compound that gives skunk spray its horrible and persistent odor. It is therefore obvious why gas odorizers are successful in detecting gas leaks: people who don't even know what the stench means will complain enough that action will be taken. As long as companies comply with the legal requirements, and continue to ensure by periodic testing that the odorizer is in fact noticeable, it is a safety-feature that is nearly fail-proof when it comes to natural gas leaks.

A back-up to odorizers is natural gas detectors which will alert occupants of a building in the event they don't notice a strange odor. This can easily happen if someone's sense of smell is compromised by allergies or a cold, or if all the residents of a building happen to be asleep at the time of the gas leak.