Several people at VCU Medical Center were sickened Friday morning by a strong odor. A chemical smell from an industrial operation in Shockoe Bottom spread across much of the downtown area by foul weather.
The hospitals canceled elective surgeries in the morning, said Anne Buckley of University News Service. Several staffers were treated and released for headaches and nausea. The emergency room and other operations were not affected, Buckley said.
Lt. Keith Vida, spokesman for Richmond Fire and Emergency Services, said the skunk-like smell was a byproduct of methyl mercaptan. RECO Biotechnology was incinerating several truckloads of sludge containing mercaptan, an additive whose strong smell makes natural gas leaks easier to detect. Wind and rain carried the smell throughout the city.
“A little bit goes a long way. Once it started spreading you could smell it all over the downtown area,” Vida said.
There had been problems with the incineration before, but only in the immediate area of Hospital Street and Valley Road. It didn’t pose a threat in the concentration released, he said.
“It’s not harmful unless you’re dealing with the pure chemical,” Vida said. “All it was really was a smell. People react differently.”
Vida said they received many calls for natural gas leaks. Only someone who worked with the chemical frequently could tell the slight difference in odor.
“For people that work with it on a daily basis, they said it had more of an oniony smell to it. For everyone else it smells like natural gas,” he said.
The company sent the offending sludge to another facility in Chesterfield County and does not plan to incinerate more sludge in the downtown location, Vida said.