Enbridge Gas Distribution is raising a stink over the fact that many Ontario residents are unable to correctly identify the potentially deadly smell of natural gas.
As part of a public safety campaign designed to help its customers identify the smell, the utility company has created a “scratch-and-sniff” brochure that gives off the unpleasant odour – which is variously described as smelling like rotten eggs or a blend of sulphur, garbage and boiled eggs.
The brochure is being inserted into the October/November bills of approximately 1.5 million Enbridge customers, while the utility is inviting its e-bill customers to request a copy at EnbridgeGas.com/smellgas. Xerox and Avant Imaging and Information Management created the brochures.
Last year, an Ipsos Reid survey of 1,000 Ontarians commissioned by Enbridge found only one third could correctly describe or identify the smell of natural gas or that of rotten eggs.
“That’s concerning for us as a utility,” said Tanya Bruckmueller, public information officer for Enbridge in Toronto. “We’re delivering energy to customers and they don’t know what to do if there is a leak.”
This year, Enbridge visited with youngsters at a Boys and Girls Club in Scarborough, Ont. to ask them to use the brochure to describe the smell, with responses ranging from “my baby brother’s poo” to “rotten eggs…with a touch of barf.”
The company posted the resulting video, developed in association with the branded content studio Fifth Story, on its YouTube channel as well as its own website and that of the Boys and Girls Club. The company is also running promoted tweets and a Facebook campaign featuring clips from the video.
“We’re going to be using this as a platform for where we go now,” said Bruckmueller. “We’re learning as we go and we’re adapting our communications and marketing based on what we’re learning.”
Enbridge also has a booth at various community events, where it is inviting people to take a “smellfie” for a chance to win one of $500 prizes. The pictures are being posted to the company’s Flickr photo gallery.
Pure natural gas is actually odourless, with the rotten-egg smell added artificially to aid in its detection. According to a report on TheAtlantic.com, the practice originated after an undetected natural gas leak led to a deadly 1937 explosion in New London, Texas that killed 295 people, mostly children.
The Enbridge campaign also urges customers who smell natural gas to call 911 or Enbridge immediately. A massive 2014 gas explosion in Harlem that killed eight people was blamed in part on area residents who smelled gas the night before, but failed to report it.
“What we want to do is make sure we get people to the point where that never happens, and if they smell natural gas they immediately know what to do,” said Bruckmueller.
