Marshall Buys $12,613 Laser Methane Detector for Gas System

Marshall City Council | August 24, 2026

Article Summary: The Marshall City Council on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026, voted unanimously to pay Utility Safety and Design Inc. $12,613.34 for a Gas Trac LZ-30 laser methane detector, a handheld instrument the manufacturer’s literature says reads methane concentrations at distances up to 100 feet.

Gas Detector Purchase Key Points:

Total order: $12,613.34, with no sales tax, on NET30 terms.

Vendor: Utility Safety and Design Inc. of Olney, quotation QT02025354 dated Aug. 20, 2026.

The unit is made by SENSIT Technologies of Valparaiso, Indiana, and carries a two-year warranty including battery, per the manufacturer’s brochure.

Michael Smitley moved payment, seconded by Jarod Green; all council members voted in favor.

MARSHALL — The Marshall City Council on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026, voted unanimously to pay USDI for a Gas Trac LZ30 in the amount of $12,613.34, authorizing the purchase of a handheld methane detection instrument for the city’s gas operations.

Smitley made the motion. Green seconded. The minutes record that upon roll call all council members voted in favor and the motion carried.

The quotation in the council’s agenda materials is from Utility Safety and Design Inc., PO Box 276, 1927 Miller Drive, Olney, dated Aug. 20, 2026, and numbered QT02025354. It lists one unit of item SEN/9340000001, described as “SENSIT GAS TRAC LZ-30 934-00000-01,” at a unit price of $12,613.34. The description continues “includes hard case, wrist strap,” with the remainder of the line truncated at the edge of the printed form. A second line for a miscellaneous item is priced at $0.00. The quotation shows no sales tax, a subtotal of $12,613.34 and a total order of $12,613.34, on NET30 terms.

What the Instrument Does

Manufacturer literature included in the packet identifies the unit as a product of SENSIT Technologies, 851 Transport Drive, Valparaiso, Indiana, with optics by Acutect. According to that literature, the LZ-30 is a methane-specific leak detector that uses tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy, or TDLAS, to read methane concentrations at distances up to 100 feet without requiring the operator to reach the gas plume directly.

The published specifications list a methane detection range of 0 to 50,000 parts per million-meter in 1 ppm-m increments, calibration accuracy of plus or minus 10 percent, response time of 0.1 seconds or less, and a detection distance of 0.5 to 30 meters. The unit weighs 300 grams, measures 164 by 78 by 36 millimeters, runs on an internal lithium-ion battery rated for six hours of continuous use with a three- to four-hour recharge, and is designed to meet IP54. The brochure lists visual, audible and tactile alarms with adjustable threshold settings, an OLED display, Bluetooth communication supported by Android, and a two-year warranty including the battery. It also advertises a “Smart-Link Live” application that logs date, time, GPS coordinates and gas measurements, with a free 30-day trial.

The standard kit, per the literature, includes a hard carrying case, an integrated calibration and bump test cell, a charger base with wall transformer, a protective boot, a wrist strap and an instruction manual.

The minutes record no discussion of the purchase, and the agenda materials contain no staff memo stating why the city is buying the instrument, whether it replaces existing equipment, which fund will pay for it, or whether other vendors were solicited. The item was listed on the agenda as a standalone action separate from the bill list.

The same payment approval report approved later in the meeting includes separate invoices under the renderings “U.S.D.I.” and “USDI,” for mapping services and for fittings, in several utility funds. The materials do not state the relationship among those renderings and the quotation’s “Utility Safety and Design Inc.”