Reports of a strong smell of natural gas in many buildings in North Texas — including Flower Mound and the Argyle area — have continued Friday.
Denton County Emergency Services District No. 1 — formerly Argyle Fire District — said in an email to residents on Thursday evening that it experienced an increase in call volume over the smell of gas from buildings around its service area. Crews have not located any hazardous levels of natural gas on the calls, only an increase in the mercaptan odorant. Hundreds of similar calls came in from Flower Mound and other areas of North Texas.
Atmos Energy said in a statement Friday that the source of the odor is excess mercaptan, with which the Atmos site in Justin over-pressurized service lines. Emergency crews and Atmos crews have responded to the higher-than-normal number of odor calls since Thursday evening and they have not found any to be gas leaks.
On Friday afternoon, Atmos announced that it would perform routine maintenance to safely burn off some gas in north Fort Worth on Friday night to try to safely remove the odor.
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