The Natural Gas Leak - That Wasn't

The paper industry  made great strides in reducing unscheduled releases over my career - and state regulators have gotten a lot better in requiring controls to be installed and monitored. Let's just say it has been a "partnership" which has improved the environment. This doesn't mean there haven't been "surprise" moments - even for those in the industry.

In the early 80's, we installed a heat recovery project to save energy. It had a tremendous financial return (less than a year) and also helped the country reduce foreign oil purchases. Well, the project also had another affect we hadn't counted on - it concentrated mercaptans found in the process and made the working conditions around the equipment unbearable. Mecaptans are odorous compounds which the gas company puts in your natural gas so you'll know if you have a leak.

On an emergency basis, we piped the concentrated mercaptans to a boiler stack and eventually started burning the gases at high temperature to eliminate them. When we first installed the burning system, we were not required to have a back-up, and from time to time, the system would go down and we'd have to vent the gases to the atmosphere (which was permissible at the time). Normally, weather conditions diffused the vent gases so impact was minimized to around the plant site.

One time we had to vent and there was absolutely no wind - and thus - no dilution. The venting gases traveled north east in an almost undiluted path. Areas which normally could not smell the mill could smell these mercaptans at their worst. This went on for several hours - the mill got no calls - and we thought we were out of the woods.  The next days local paper, though, indicated we didn't go unnoticed. The headlines were, County Emergency Services Could Not Find Natural Gas Leak!  Apparently, people were calling to complain about smelling Natural Gas and the Emergency folks spent a better part of the day driving around looking for a natural gas leak. This shouldn't happen today, thanks to efforts of paper mills to improve their systems and to environmental regulators who have insisted on better monitors. Never-the-less, this is one of those sad but true stories from the past.