Can FDNY Handle New Gas Leak Protocol?

On the heels of Mayor de Blasio's announcement that the Fire Department will have a much greater role in responding to gas leak reports, questions were raised at a City Council hearing Wednesday as to whether the department has the capacity to handle the additional responsibility.

With the tragedy of the March building explosion in East Harlem fresh in the minds of New Yorkers, the mayor issued an order that any calls placed to 311 reporting gas odors will be immediately transferred to the 911 emergency line, triggering a fire department response. The announcement was part of a larger report from the mayor's Underground Infrastructure Working Group, which also calls for more efficient repairs to the city's aging infrastructure and improved communication and coordination between city agencies about potentially dangerous leaks. 

During an oversight hearing on that very subject--the city's failing gas, steam, and water infrastructure--Councilman Daniel Garodnick asked Edward Foppiano, the senior vice president of gas operations at Consolidated Edison, one of the city's two main gas utilities, whether he thought the FDNY could handle the additional call burden that the mayor's mandate requires. Con Ed currently fields 33,000 gas odor calls per year, though 40 percent are from Westchester County.

"I can’t answer for the Fire Department, we are working with the Fire Department on this," Foppiano siad. "I can tell you that they are looking at their capability of doing this for all gas odor calls coming in from New York City."

A spokesman for the mayor's office affirmed that the FDNY was on board with the decision and have "analyzed what it would mean to their workload," and FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro endorsed the plan in the city's press release on the infrastructure report. However, when asked about the mayor's mandate on gas leak calls, a department spokesman curiously declined to comment on the decision.

Garodnick, who expressed annoyance that the mayor's office did not notify the Council of the overlapping report before the hearing so that they could have been prepared with more questions, pressed Foppiano did on whether the mandate would enhance their procedure for fielding gas odor calls. Currently, ConEd classifies these calls into certain categories that trigger a response from the FDNY depending on the description of the gas leak.  Foppiano said that since the fire department has more conveniently located manpower and a much faster response time--8 minutes compared to ConEd's 2013 average of 22--it would only help prevent future accidents.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated that the Fire Department had not officially released a statement regarding Mayor de Blasio's mandate that the FDNY would field calls reporting gas odors. The story has been corrected with a statement from FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigron.