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Methane gas from the sea floor caused a foul odor on Sunday that prompted nearly 100 emergency calls from residents reporting the stench from Santa Monica to West Los Angeles, officials said.
The odor, which smelled like sulfur, was first reported late Saturday, air quality officials said. The smell wafted in from the Santa Monica Bay.
Justin Walker, a Santa Monica Fire Department spokesman, said hazardous-materials crews found small increments of methane gas in the air at 8:30 a.m.
The amount of methane in the air was not considered dangerous, Walker said, adding he's heard of this type of incident happening up to six times in the last four years.
Hazardous-materials crews were called out after dispatchers reported some 80 calls to 911 of residents reporting the stench.
Methane is usually released when the tectonic plates shift, Walker said. This shift was small and did not cause an earthquake, he said.
A cold weather front that moved in overnight and brought onshore winds with it caused the smell to waft inland, he said.
"The marine layer vacuumed it up because it had nowhere to go out," Walker said.
Inspectors from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, Southern California's air pollution control agency, were also investigating.
Maria Carlito Covarrubias, writing on the NBC4 Facebook page, said she smelled the odor Saturday night at about 11:45 p.m.
Another Facebook user, Summers McKay, said she called her building manager because she was worried that the smell was a gas leak.
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Methane has no color or odor. The sulfur smell had to have been from decaying matter upturned by a 'bubble' on the sea floor, or possibly the position of Californica legislators upwind from the scene. Californica lawmakers will now probably ban bad smells from the ocean.
Hilariously true. Ban the ocean gas with legislation.
The EPA is all over this one for sure.
Could this indicate a coming earthquake?
If a big blue state slides into the ocean republicans might have a chance in the next election.
Godzilla farts.
This could deplete the ozone and ocean oxygen!
Lindsay's back from New York.
Pepperdine University sits directly on top of the fault line and there are several related faults right off the coast.
Experts say the fault is overdue for a big one.
They also say a big quake in this area would result in a large tsunami.
Good luck folks.
I don't like the sound of this. I just checked into the fault lines there and the experts seem to think this spot could get hit really hard. Causing "Very Extensive Damage".
with all my deepest feelings and with all my heart
for you i let out this ominous fart
i wish it greets you in the best of health
and don't forget to tell me how it smelt
- LA ocean
Anyone in the area should review the Emergency preparedness plan. Have water and food, A meeting place, and an evacuation plan.
Also turn off your gas meter before leaving your house.
When I hear of reports of smells like this, I think of volcanos. Something is rumbling in the earth.
Remember that Tommy Lee Jones movie when the water started to boil at the La Brea Tar Pits and Volcanos started popping up in downtown LA?
I see this as the only way to clean all the Mexican gangbangers out of there.
Melt the whole damn place down to the ground and start over. Imagine L A being reduces to fertile farmland again.
A little Nancy Pelosi toot!
Oh Sh%T, yeah! Its just like that movie. They better check the sewers for lava flows.
I think this might be coming from staples center.. Lakers stink
stink is nothing new, the whole city stinks. oh, i mean sux! state to for that matter.
Hummmmmmm Where are all the "Volcanologist?" .... LOL
Volcano vent gases that smell like sulfur ... but so do some marshes .. it's hard to pass on a "smell" on the internet ... California is cover in experts on these matters ... I'm sure they are on it like "stink on Sh*t!"
And my first thought was that L.A. had found their waste treatment facility had made an error and routed L.A.'s waste discharge lines into the ocean.
My bad.
Wait a minute....I noticed Mr. Canary used "pre-planned" comments from a notebook this morning concerning the Worm's visited to North Korea. Probably just a small "correction" while talking to the press off the cuff since last week, he make a serious mistake....the told the truth about the Sequester coming from Mr. Obama. Maybe he should start using Mr. Obama's teleprompter. Yep, would like to hear Mr. Canary's point of view on this "SMELL"......"off the cuff" of course.
A similar thing happens to me when I shift my buttocks.
The smell was from hydrogen sulfide. This gas almost always accompanies methane. It can be deadly.
I'd like to think the fire department knows the difference between the two. At least, I hope they do.
"LA, I fart in your general direction!" - Pacific Ocean
-courtesy of Monty Python
This has something to do with humans. Humans cause all natural anomalies!
as this was posted , shortly after followed a quake in the area , plz also note the seismic activity in the new madrid area , 4 quakes in 1 day , also note the lack of activity in the plate off the east coast of americas , this means pressure is building & im expecting a release of that pressure around the march 20th timeline of pres obamas visit to israel.
Somebody strike a match for crying out loud. Inundating their call center and wasting emergency resources over some funk in the air, what dolts.
If a huge cloud of ocean methane gas forms and is ignited then LA could explode. This gas should be captured in the form of ice crystals before it all melts into a gas. This is one solution to our energy problem but doubt any profit hungry entity would try it.
If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle. And the reason no profit-hungry entity will try freezing the gas is because there is no profit in it.
Try to freeze the whole sky to capture gas in sunny SoCal. Is that your plan?
Good luck with that.
Bill you rascal, do you have any good ideas how to get coffee stains out of curtains?
I would probably dye the curtains a darker color, then paint the room to match.
Or just say its an original Polack. Put up a plaque.
LoL The sea is farting on LA..
Damn, you beat me to it! *lol*
One more; one more ;)
No the WORLD is farting on LA!
False alarm. It was just Jerry Brown getting off a plane at LAX.
Kraken farted
Is there a law that requires "reporters" to have absolutely no knowledge of science or math?
Sounds about right. But there were so few details, how would we even know.
Since when is reading someone's facebook page considered journalism?
If reporters were interested in science and math, they wouldn't have become reporters. Missing words, bad sentence structure, things like that are OK, but not many other places. Be thankful they're not working on the brakes in your car.
" Missing words, bad sentence structure, things like that are OK,"
Really? When I took Journalism 101, grammar was a big part of the course. But then again, I guess our great Public School System isn't interested in having literate students anymore.
C'mon people. Methane is odorless!!!!!!!!!!! Why do you think you add Mercaptan? Hydrogen sulfide is the odor, not Methane!! We trust firefighters without a degree in Chemistry?
Forget about it sliding into the sea, its the raw sewage they pump everyday into the ocean, it's going to blow one day. If I see George Clooney flying over my house I will know what happened.
Maybe all the meteor strikes are releasing the methane from under the sea.
Of course firefighters don't have a degree in chemistry, but maybe you should join the LAFD and give them the benefit of your PHD.
Probably from the sea grass, they had that problem a couple of years ago.
No, natural gas is odorless. Methane smells sulfurous - like a giant fart.
::snerk:: My Inner-12-Year-Old-Boy finds this story ridiculously funny!
The Wookie is correct, methane is odorless - as is natural gas which is roughly - 95% methane.
Right on Terelyn, and this sort of thing happens thousands of time a day around the world. I loved it in the W. PA streams when I was a kid and actually lit vents as has eons of inhabitants through the years. Cow farts leave a lot of methane, but those useless horses emit the most.
Such smells are sometimes associated with naturally-occurring methane releases, although the methane itself is odorless. It's possible there are biological components involved, or even that the odor is not related to a release of methane from the sea floor at all. They're still investigating, and have not verified that that was the actual cause of the smell.
Says it smells like sulfur, but yeah I wish they had described it better. Was it that rotten egg smell?
there is no way better to describe it. Rotten eggs x500
Oh when I was in high school, I dropped a stink bomb capsule in the gym locker room, so I know that smell. They had to evacuate.
Los Angeles is a 911 call.
It's only matter of time when that fault shifts enough to drop California into the ocean.
BUSH did it.
Bush always does it. ;)
Only nanny-state Californians would call 911 because their state stinks. We wish they'd just sink into the ocean already and stop immigrating to Nevada where they vote to make Nevada just as jacked up of a nanny state as the one they emigrated from.
Hey Californians: Stay in the state you f'd up with your own nanny state votes.
I'm in Reno and I know what you mean.
9-1-1, What is your emergency?
LA stinks!
Attention all units! LA stinks, respond code 3!
Gotta love California . . .
"We all have our personal opinions, Sir, but we're not allowed to tie up the 9-1-1 lines with them."
(Hi, mpa, hope you had a nice weekend!)
I did, Mimi. And right back atcha!
911 call, What is your emergency?
LA stinks!
Sir, I wasn't asking for your political views.
I was told when in LA ... if you smelled a foul odor you were supposed to dial ... *7448 ....
Nothing to fear. the Enterprise did a jump back in time to dump its bio load... find it, study it, place it in the Smithsonian.
Mimi.......................... Are you a Trekkie?
Oh...yeah...
The original... fell in love with Spock at a young age and I am 62 now.
Live long and prosper! It isn't logical to hunt a species to extinction... (/Spock.. the origianl embodiment of a true Democrat/Republican mix, the best of both)
Hi, DB!
That smell must be really bad in order to get a stinky town like L.A. to notice it.
Ever drop a stink bomb capsule in the hall way of your high school?
No my high school already accomplished that so I didn't need too.
They never found who did it, but now 20 years later, I am confessing that it was me.
(gasp)
I'm a bad person.
yes you are...
"Yes I understand, that every life must end, uh huh.."
Now I got Pearl Jam songs in my head.
"It wont be the last and it wont be the first"...
Stay gassy San Diego.
Knew I should have hit that corner push Cart burrito stand yesterday!
Its just Rosie O'Donnel passing gas. Don't worry.
It's just to horrible to imagine.
Those must be some major A-bombs.
911 what's the emergency!
L.A. Stinks
911 emergency how does LA Stink?
Like Sh!&
911 am I on Candid Camera?
Ba dum dssh.
# 10 - Andrew Bynum's back in town !!! #9 - Mitt Romney lost his hair gel # 8 - Hurry up and bury Rodney King...before it's too late !!! #7 - The Rams are back in town !!! # 6 - It's called method acting, right Keanu ??!! # 5 - If it's relevant, it can't be Kato Kaelin. # 4 - Ishtar - don't worry Warren, it'll be a BIG HIT !! # 3 - Places Everybody , it's Ed Wood !!! # 2 - I haven't seen Arsenio since..., Oh, Who Gives a F@### !!! # 1 - Where's OJ ??
Throwing a super bowl party in his cell.
To many Mexicans eating to many BEANS.
Beans, beans, good for your heart. The more you eat them, the more you fart. The more you fart, the better you feel. So lets eat beans for every meal!
It is only California, Who Cares.
Oh wow!!! Who would have thought my Sunday morning "Hey what's that massive gas leak smell?" call to my building manager would end up as newsworthy! I will say, it was a really intense smell and my friend who was visiting from OC suggested we call about it. Really did think our building was about to explode.
Be prepared for an Earthquake.
I've been waiting since the 1994 Northridge Earthquake,I lived right smack in the middle of that[in Northridge]I actually thought it was the end of the world it was so violent,things were just exploding all around,I ended up out of my bedroom,into my Living room and don't know how the hell I got there,as I was asleep when it happened.The one thing I remember though[and I know it sounds selfish]My big thought in my mind was WELL! At least we are all going out together,that was comforting,so now I'm not scared about earth-quakes any more.
The Govanator is back in town
Couldn't happen to a nicer state! OK now, California, let's outlaw them whale pharts! Or was it just the spring migration from Mexico?
Get ready CA for the big quake. Sulfar from the bay means you better look out.
Slip and slide.
Are the poiliticians bathing again?
Putting Good and Honest Values Back Into the Government
Punching Through The Hole into the Politicians "Fort Knoxx"
There is one weakness that all Americans overlook when dealing with the corruption of government. That one weakness is the money that government invests and becomes rich off of while they still earn a paycheck that is based off of our tax dollars. Why should any government official earn a retirement paycheck that is drawn from tax money when they make $5,000,000 a year in investments that are kept hidden in off shore oil and Swiss Bank Accounts
George Bush Jr. is worth an estimated $35,000,000 and still earns $190,000 a year in retirement that over 20 years adds up to $3.8 million dollars. That $3.8 million dollars is TAX PAYER money going into the coffers of someone who is worth $35 million dollars. DO YOU see any sense for someone worth $35 million to receive $190,000 a year retirement? Money that could be going back into the economy. Back into America and not towards such a politicians luxuries. I'm not talking about Democrat or Republic, Conservative or Liberal. I am talking about ALL politicians who make over $50,000 a year from investments being paid ANY retirement. Retirement money that comes from the taxpayers pocket. Money that is being spent by the politician for their luxuries when everyone else has to pay for their luxuries.
If that isn't tyranny then I don't know what is.
The more that we bring about values back to the American government the more likely other nations will follow suit and replace their corrupt terrorist governments.
The real question is how much are politicians retiring on when they do not need such retirement.
I bet the overall cost to the taxpayers is well into the trillion dollar level.
They don't need it yet they still take it from the American taxpayer.
They just continue to take....
Sounds like Maxine Waters had a upset stomach