Baltimore emergency management officials say they have determined the smell of natural gas reported downtown on Sunday morning is not a danger.
Officials said Baltimore Fire Department and Baltimore Gas and Electric crews believe it is not caused by natural gas but rather the additive called mercaptan, which is added to the odorless natural gas to give it a detectable smell. Capt. Roman Clark, a spokesman for the fire department, said the source was traced to Clean Harbors of Baltimore, Inc., a industrial waste treatment center at 1910 Russell Street, south of the stadiums.
Clark said workers at Clean Harbors were cleaning tanks at the facility but mistakenly did not add enough of a certain chemical to avoid the smell of mercaptan spreading throughout downtown. The odor appeared to have been detected over a wide swath of downtown and just west of downtown, and also drifted north. Reports began around 10 a.m. but Clark said the smell had largely disippated by 11 a.m.