Julia Garrison
News Editor
Early Monday morning, areas of the College campus smelled strongly of gas, igniting concerns of a building gas leak or another internal issue within the College. Around 8:30 a.m., Facilities Operations Manager Erica Adams-Gowins addressed the campus community to inform them that the smell was not gas, but a “Wooster-based environmental company that [was] cleaning their facility.”
“It has been confirmed by the Wooster Fire Department that it is nontoxic,” she stated in her email.
In a statement made on Facebook an hour following the facilities’ update, the Wooster Fire Department confirmed that there “[was] nothing hazardous or dangerous about the odor.” The fire department also connected the odor to an unnamed company on Industrial Boulevard. They mentioned that the company was attempting to minimize the odor and that the process would be complete before noon.
A very thick gas smell continued to linger on campus through the morning, which Adams-Gowins said was due to the low wind levels.
Some members of the greater Wooster community were concerned about the correlation of this event to the air quality levels, as levels slowly continued to rise throughout the day. An official statement from the unnamed facility was not issued to any public-facing offices or news outlets at the time of publication.
Tensions between residents and environmental companies are no stranger to Wayne County. A class action lawsuit from the City of Wooster against Enviro-Tank Clean (Envrioclean) alleged that the company was causing extreme discomfort to individuals living near the facility, citing complaints of headaches and nausea. Enviroclean is also located on Industrial Boulevard.
The city and Enviroclean reached a settlement agreement in 2015 in which Enviroclean would be able to continue to operate in Wooster, but under new “improvement measures” that would prevent odors in the neighborhood. This involved some key infrastructure changes in their facilities.
