Somerville High School Bunsen Burner

Parents touring the gleaming Somerville High School had much to admire as they strolled the halls at a recent open house, learning about their children’s classes and, for many, getting their first look inside the quarter-billion-dollar building , which opened in 2021.

But they said they were surprised and quite frustrated to learn during the event that students in the school’s 12 newly constructed science labs have been largely without a key piece of equipment for three years: Bunsen burners. The candle-shaped devices, which emit flames and are used to heat and burn various substances, have been virtually inoperable since students first walked through the doors of the 35,000-square-foot building

“Why did I just find out about this?” asked parent Genevieve Walsh, whose son is a sophomore and started chemistry this year. “All we have heard is that the school is great and everything is great, but there is a serious problem.”

She said she was disturbed when she didn’t find out sooner that the new building didn’t have working Bunsen burners, which have been a staple of high school chemistry for generations.

“A lot of chemistry comes from experience – you actually do it rather than just reading about it. So that seems really unfortunate,” she said.

Asked about the issue, the city’s Capital Projects team said in a statement that the Bunsen burners were inactive for safety reasons after it was discovered that the gas used for the burners contained too little of a chemical called mercaptan. This is the foul-smelling odorant that is added to natural gas to give it a telltale odor if there are leaks or if a device such as a Bunsen burner is accidentally left on.

New gasoline Pipes, officials said, absorb mercaptan, and because they were installed at a time when schools were closed due to the COVID pandemic, they had extra time to suck the smelly substance out of the flammable gas, making it odorless.

It was a “somewhat unique situation,” they said Statement that “a large amount of gas remained in the system with no noticeable odor.”

Over time, as the gas circulates through the pipes, they absorb so much of the smelly additive that they become saturated – a process known in the natural gas industry as “pickling.” The brand new pipes that power the high school’s labs are not yet sufficiently stained, which could pose a safety risk.

“Teachers were concerned that students were turning on the gas, not lighting the burners, and the room was filling with gas without that telltale smell,” the statement said. “That’s why the school management turned off the gas.”

Officials said they looked into hiring a contractor to clean the pipes of the odorless gas, but concluded the process would be “extremely invasive” and not guaranteed to work.

Instead, the district has ordered 60 sensors that can detect leaks and plans to install them this week, which will allow for the use of Bunsen burners. (Officials emphasized that the school’s students are not at risk from the problem and that the building’s existing smoke detectors can already detect gas leaks. The sensors are an additional precaution.)

Meanwhile, Somerville Public Schools spokeswoman Jackie Piques said some students had used burners in certain circumstances “under careful supervision” while waiting for the pipes to become functional. To get around this problem, some teachers last semester resorted to using Bunsen burners powered by portable gas tanks so that certain classes could proceed as planned.

Science teachers at the high school declined comment through their union, the Somerville Educators Union.

For parents like Leiran Biton, who is also a school board member, it was hard to accept that in a brand new building that cost $260 million, not all the parts were functional and that even elected officials like him didn’t know about it. Biton, a scientist with a background who studied chemistry at university, said it is important that students don’t miss out on what is a groundbreaking experience for many.

“There are a few things in school that almost everyone remembers, and lighting the Bunsen burner and boiling a vat of something from high school chemistry class is one of those moments that is burned into the memory of almost every high school student have. It’s visceral,” Biton said. “So I really want our students to have this experience so they can fully participate in science classes.”

Spencer Buell can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @SpencerBuell.