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Mysterious odor in Seal Beach has residents and city looking for answers

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Authorities appear to have no answers for a mysterious smell that a Seal Beach resident said gave him nausea and a headache and has other residents fearing for their health.

Steve Stasoiski, a 16-year resident of Seal Beach, said he was at his home in Old Town around 8:30 p.m. Sunday when he began to feel ill. This was the first time Stasoiski was sickened by the unknown smell, but it wasn’t the first time he had experienced the gas-like odor. Stasoiski said it comes around every few months.

“I have smelled this multiple times, but this was the strongest it’s ever been,” Stasoiski said. “I am not someone that gets sick easily, but the smell gave me bad nausea and a headache.”

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Wendi Rothman, a 25-year city resident, said the odor smells “chemical” and “oily.”

“It makes my eyes burn and it gives me nausea,” she said. “You can taste it.”

Seal Beach City Council member Ellery Deaton was moved to action after Sunday night’s event, which she said was so intolerable she had to close all the windows in her home. She contacted City Manager Jill Ingram this week, and according to Deaton, Ingram’s staff will be looking into the cause of the odor.

Deaton said the mysterious smell has been around since she moved to Old Town in 1993, but she still doesn’t know what’s causing it. She said it smells like natural gas.

Assistant City Manager Patrick Gallegos confirmed that city staff is investigating the matter. It has not yet identified the source of the odor, he said.

Sergio Jimenez, a spokesman for Southern California Gas Co., which serves Seal Beach and most of Southern California, said company inspectors went to the area Sunday night and did not find anything.

However, Jimenez said, the smell “definitely was not natural gas.”

He did not know whether inspectors had responded in the past to any calls from Seal Beach residents regarding the odor.

In March, the Daily Pilot reported that authorities said a similar odor experienced in the Costa Mesa area probably originated offshore, possibly from a “drilling apparatus.”

But authorities had no answers for Sunday’s episode in Seal Beach.

Sam Atwood, spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said the organization received 39 odor complaints from Seal Beach residents Saturday through Monday. The AQMD has received reports about unpleasant odors in Seal Beach for a few years, he said.

The organization has sent inspectors to the area several times for testing but never found a cause for the smell, he said. An inspector was sent Sunday night, but the findings were not yet available.

Ray Hiemstra, associate director of programs for Orange County Coastkeeper, a Costa Mesa-based environmental organization, said he had not received any reports from residents about the incident and that if there had been a spill or contamination of a body of water, his group probably would be aware of it.

Some residents said they feel left in the dark, especially now that the problem seems to be getting worse.

“We’ve been exposed to an unknown source of a cocktail of gases,” said Mark Dennison, a 24-year resident of Seal Beach. “It has been around for quite some time, years probably. But it is occurring more frequently. People are detecting it all over. It can’t be good for you.”

Stasoiski said he and his neighbors have commiserated over the odor on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

“Noxious petroleum smell in Seal Beach for the umpteenth time,” one Twitter user said Sunday.

“How can we bring attention to horrible gas smell in air in Seal Beach?” another said. “Been problem for a while.”

On Sunday, residents created a forum on Nextdoor, a social networking website for neighborhoods, to discuss the smell. Since Sunday, the forum has compiled posts from more than 80 people, Rothman said.

benjamin.brazil@latimes.com

Twitter: @benbrazilpilot

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