Some southwest suburban communities are getting calls from residents reporting smelling natural gas in their neighborhoods, and utility company Nicor is looking into the issue.
Tinley Park reports calls to its 911 center this morning about the odor, and the village said that many communities to the east of the village are also fielding similar complaints.
Oak Forest and Posen report receiving calls about a natural gas smell, and that Nicor is working to locate the odor.
A Nicor spokeswoman, Jennifer Golz, said the utility has “received and responded to a high volume of calls reporting a natural gas odor.”
The reported odor began in the south suburbs early Wednesday morning, and the wind is carrying it west, she said. The utility has not experienced any service outages, and has not yet pinpointed the source of the odor, she said.
“Our first responders investigate every natural gas odor report from customers as a safety precaution and will continue to do so as we work to identify the cause,” Golz said.
She noted that natural gas itself is odorless, and as a safety measure for detection of leaks, mercaptan is added, which gives natural gas an odor often associated with rotten eggs. Mercaptan will naturally dissipate and poses no harm to the community.
Tinley Park said BP’s refinery in Whiting, Indiana, is also “actively looking into this.”
Late last week, suburbs along the state line including Crete and Steger reported calls of a gas smell. At that time, the Crete Fire Department shared that Nicor advised a pipe system in Indiana was venting its lines.
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“Due to this, the area will have an odor of natural gas outside,” the Crete department posted on its Facebook page. “Our fire department is monitoring this, and it does not pose a risk to the public.”
BP reported that on the afternoon of Jan. 18, the Whiting refinery, BP’s largest and the biggest refinery in the Midwest, experienced a leak from a storage tank.
The leak was sealed the next day, but some communities in the vicinity of the refinery could experience odors while the tank confinement area is being cleaned, Christina Audisho, a BP spokeswoman, said Wednesday.
She said notifications of the leak were made to local and state regulatory entities and the refinery continues to operate normally.
Audisho said stationary and mobile air quality monitoring equipment is being used until contaminated soil and gravel in the tank containment has been removed.
This is a developing story.
mnolan@tribpub.com
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