Do you smell gas?

Hi there neighbors and happy new year. Just wanted to take a moment to do a survey regarding gas leakages in our town from the gaslights. We all love our town gaslights and they are a source of pride (only Glen Ridge and South Orange can boast of them) but as we know, the lines are OLD and often the smell of gas can be detected and even possibly be entering our homes. This is a big problem. I know that by our street off Montrose PSE & G has been on site for the past 20 years trying to correct this issue but it is merely "patched" and then never directly addressed. Also by Floods Hill it seems there is a constant odor of gas. Are they hoping we will get "used to it"? It would be a good time to take this to PSE & G corporate office especially since thier CEO Frank Izzy is moving progressively toward renewable energy. This could be a good time to get the problem fixed once and for all by solarizing the gaslights. The line is obviously in a bad state : over 100 years old pipes , tree roots etc that is causing the infrastructure to fail. By solarizing these we could stop the excess methane from harming our families and also causing a possible violation of emissions. Also, since the lights are historic, we may be able to get funding for such projects. SO, who smells the gas and where? Thanks! Maria.

At the corner of Turrell and SO Ave we had a gas leak for years. Eventually it got bad enough for them to fix. I'm sure they wait until a certain threshold where the chance of an explosion is high enough to justify the cost of digging.

If you smell gas, don't assume it is the street lamp.  In our case it was not the lamp in front of our house (as we incorrectly assumed for years), but a decaying connector on the feed line to our house.  

It wasn't diagnosed correctly until we started having furnace problems due to low gas flow -- once it was diagnosed, PSE&G dug up the street to fix it that same night.

Since many of our homes are fueled by gas, it is unwise to assume that the problems come from the lamps, or that converting the lamps would end problems with old gas lines.

RobB said:

At the corner of Turrell and SO Ave we had a gas leak for years. Eventually it got bad enough for them to fix. I'm sure they wait until a certain threshold where the chance of an explosion is high enough to justify the cost of digging.

Thank you Rob. I am gathering information. Will keep you posted.

susan1014 said:

If you smell gas, don't assume it is the street lamp.  In our case it was not the lamp in front of our house (as we incorrectly assumed for years), but a decaying connector on the feed line to our house.  

It wasn't diagnosed correctly until we started having furnace problems due to low gas flow -- once it was diagnosed, PSE&G dug up the street to fix it that same night.

Since many of our homes are fueled by gas, it is unwise to assume that the problems come from the lamps, or that converting the lamps would end problems with old gas lines.

Yes, this is true, but in the circumstances of which I am speaking it is KNOWN even by PSE & G that there is a giant leak in South Orange due to the crumbling gas infrastructure. These lamps were NEVER meant to run ALL DAY LONG. There used to be fellas that would turn them off and on every day! It just was "cheaper" to have them run all day when the price of gas went down and having somebody climb the poles every day was not feasible. What I am addressing is gas lamp specific. By all means, whenever you smell gas you should call PSE & G and the fire dept, but this has been going on a LONG time and it should be addressed.