QUEENSBURY, N.Y. -- Roads in Queensbury are back open after a natural gas leak Thursday afternoon. It started near one of the area's largest manufacturing plants.

About a half mile of Bay Road was closed for a little bit, but is now reopened.

Around noon, the Queensbury Central Fire Department responded to a leaking tank on an abandoned Bay Road property that sits next to CR Bard's medical device manufacturing plant.

The fire chief says the leak was caused by someone who didn't realize the tank was full and cut into it while trying to salvage scrap metal.

Because the break was in a line and not the valve, crews were unable to stop the leak.

While there were no forced evacuations, CR Bard, which employs a few hundred people and uses numerous chemicals, stopped production for the day.

It is unclear how much gas was in the tank.

General Motors Co. officials say damage could hit $5 million following an explosion last week in a battery-testing lab at its Tech Center in Warren, according to a police report obtained by The Detroit News. The blast injured an employee who remained in the hospital Tuesday.

GM Facility Manager Mo Abraham, and Krishon Davis, who works in GM fire prevention, told Warren police that damage "could reach the $5 million mark."

A separate Warren Fire Department report from last Wednesday's explosion estimated $3 million in damage, with property losses at $1 million and contents at $2 million. Warren Fire Commissioner Skip McAdams said Tuesday he estimates the loss is closer to $3 million than $5 million. The figure could change when a full fire investigation report is completed.

GM said last week the explosion was created by gases that vented from an experimental battery pack inside an enclosed room in its battery lab in the Alternative Energy Center building. GM likened the incident to a natural gas explosion, as gases from a battery gathered in the room during extreme testing and ignited.

GM would not comment directly Tuesday on damage estimates cited in the reports.

David Rittenhouse Laboratory was evacuated around 12:45 p.m. Sunday due to reports of a small methane and hydrogen spill in the basement.

About 13 firetrucks from the Philadelphia Fire Department including a HAZMAT team arrived on scene. The team investigated and found no detectable leak, according to Division of Public Safety spokesperson Stef Karp. There were no injuries.

The incident was due to a malfunction in the building’s flammable gas alarm. As a precaution, the room’s gas bottles were shut down, Karp wrote in an email.

Nursing junior Meghan O’Neill was working in the multimedia center in the basement of the building when she was forced to evacuate. She said she didn’t hear an alarm in the building, but firefighters came in and told her to evacuate.

The trucks left at about 1:10 p.m., and Penn Police deemed it safe for people to return to the building.

Two maintenance workers injured in a Thursday afternoon explosion at the Struthers wastewater treatment plant were listed in "critical" condition as of Friday morning.

Kenny Stiver, a 20-year employee, and Gary Wilson, who was hired in 2006, were air lifted to Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh following the explosion. Officials said Wilson had burns on more than 90 percent of his body.

The explosion, which Struthers Fire Chief Gary Mudryk said likely was caused by methane gas, happened around 2:30 p.m.
 
Fire crews from Struthers and Western Reserve Joint Fire District both responded to the call.

Mudryk said Wilson and Stiver were working in an older part of the facility adjacent to the dome at the plant. He said that section of the plant will remain closed until further notice, but the rest of the plant is still operating.

In 2011, the plant debuted a $5 million generator that converts methane gas into electricity and natural gas. Workers said that newer area of the plant is not where the explosion occurred.

The state fire marshal's office is investigating Thursday's incident, as well as OSHA. Officials are hoping to determine the cause by late next week. Insurance adjusters have been at the plant, trying to determine the extent of the damage.

BP Plc has halted a sulfur dioxide leak at its Texas City refinery in Texas, according to a city official.

There is an ongoing leak of mercaptans at the refinery, Bruce Clawson, the local emergency management coordinator, said in a telephone interview today. Mercaptans are an odor added to natural gas.

Sulfur dioxide leaked from a unit inside the refinery yesterday, according to a filing with the National Response Center.

ROSSVILLE, WALKER COUNTY (WRCB)-- Channel 3 is learning more about a home explosion that rocked a Rossville neighborhood Wednesday night. 

Officials with the State Fire Marshal's office continued their investigation on Mission Ridge Road Friday morning. Sniffer dogs walked the property, but nothing meth-related was detected.

While investigators haven't determined an official cause, they believe the explosion could stem from a 60-year-old septic tank.

A methane detector found levels of the chemical were three times higher than usual. Investigators believe a seal on an iron pipe came loose, triggering the explosion. 

For the second time in two days there has been an emergency at a natural gas drilling site.

Thursday's was in Bradford County. Today there was one in Lycoming County.

State environmental officials said there was a malfunction at an Anadarko well pad north of Jersey Shore.

Emergency crews responded along Dam Run Road at the Larry's Creek Fishing and Hunting Club a little after noon.

Authorities said a gas production unit, something similar in size to a backyard shed, malfunctioned.

A spokesperson for Anadarko Petroleum said no one was hurt in and all operations were taken offline.

Adrian Martin was aware that his work at Membrane Technology and Research in Menlo Park was "not as safe as it should be," his wife recalled.
The 56-year-old scientist's observation appeared to ring true Friday afternoon when a gas-fueled explosion ripped through a laboratory at the company's Willow Road headquarters, killing him and injuring a colleague.
"He's not here right now because a stupid gas system wouldn't work," Martin's widow Livia said. "He was just a victim of unsafe surroundings."
Martin was mixing methane, helium and nitrogen for an experiment at about 4 p.m. when a tank containing one of the gases ruptured, said Menlo Park Fire Protection District Chief Harold Schapelhouman. The blast catapulted a female scientist who was inside the lab with Martin into an adjacent corridor.
"It was fortuitous she was near the entrance and not thrown into a wall," Schapelhouman said.

MENLO PARK -- A scientist was killed and another employee was injured Friday when a methane canister exploded at a Menlo Park research and development company that produces systems for the gas and petrochemical industry, authorities said.

The male scientist, whose name was not immediately released, was transferring separate canisters of methane, helium and nitrogen into one container when the explosion occurred during a laboratory experiment, said Menlo Park Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman.

The victim died at the scene.

A female co-worker sustained injuries to her eardrum. She was taken to Stanford Hospital.

The explosion at Membrane Technology & Research Inc. at 1360 Willow Road was reported at 4:07 p.m. Firefighters evacuated 23 other employees from the company's building. No other businesses or residences in the area were evacuated.

Company workers were able to shut off the canisters containing helium and nitrogen. The methane, however, continued to leak, and fire crews stayed into the night venting the building with portable fans, the chief said.

The explosion had such violent force it blew three-foot chunks of steel more than 100 yards.

But though cars were damaged and plaster fell from the ceiling of nearby buildings, nobody was hurt in the massive underground explosion in the Deep Tunnel flood protection system in south suburban South Holland Tuesday morning, officials said.

A build up of methane gas from sewage deposited in the tunnel during recent floods — perhaps ignited by an electric compressor used to measure the depth of flood waters — is suspected of causing the blast, according to a source familiar with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District’s investigation of the accident.

MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va., June 7 (UPI) -- A drill crew tapped into an old coal mine in West Virginia's Northern Panhandle Monday, igniting a methane gas blast that injured seven people, officials said.

The Wheeling News-Register reported officials were investigating the 1:15 a.m. accident that also closed a portion of U.S. 250 for a time. The newspaper said the crew had been working into the night and drilled through the abandoned mine owned by Consol Energy.

Marshall County Chief Deputy Kevin Cecil said the workers had little time to react.

"We know there were six workers on the well when they started to hear what the men described as a rumbling," Cecil said.