At the beginning of December, in the La Pallice and Laleu districts, odors of gas and hydrocarbons were felt in the industrial zone and near the Laleu school. The gas smelled would be mercaptan, an additive used by GRDF to make city gas odorous in the event of a leak, indicates the city of La Rochelle.
To recap, initially, on Monday December 2, these odors of hydrocarbons and gas were felt at the Laleu school, triggering the intervention of the firefighters and GRDF, who were unable to find the source. Children at school would have been inconvenienced for a few hours, without having any illness or serious case. On Tuesday morning, rue Béthencourt was temporarily closed after the same odors were felt in the industrial zone of La Pallice. Finally, the same episode took place on Wednesday morning, with the same smells, indicates the city of La Rochelle.
At the time of the episode, the firefighters and GRDF had not succeeded in finding the source, despite the measurements carried out. Several hypotheses had been formulated, such as the ongoing maintenance of a petroleum product pipeline or the recent storage of a very odorous hydrocarbon. The operators of the La Pallice oil depots have been asked to put in place, from Wednesday December 5, a protocol for measuring volatile organic compounds (VOCs) around their site. Concretely, this device allows the installation of sensors around sites in order to have measurements and potentially find a source of this problem.
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