Agencies say gasoline additive is contaminating water nationwide

Agencies say gasoline additive is contaminating water nationwide

By JOHN HOWARD

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (January 21, 2000 10:04 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - MTBE, a widely used gasoline additive that makes cars burn cleaner, has posed a cruel dilemma: It's making the air cleaner, but it's polluting the water.

A suspected animal carcinogen with unknown health effects on humans, MTBE has become the curse of water officials from California to New England. The additive spreads through water so quickly and thoroughly that a scant spoonful can foul an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

Leaking from gas stations' underground fuel tanks, it has forced wells to close, run up millions of dollars in cleanup costs, sparked suits and prompted state, local and federal investigations into a petrochemical that is still something of a mystery.

"It's a diabolical chemical. It moves up, it moves down, it moves everywhere. Our feeling is that as long as MTBE is in gasoline, our groundwater is in jeopardy," said Dennis Cocking of the South Tahoe Public Utility District, where 12 of 34 wells were closed because of MTBE.

MTBE has two critical characteristics - its ability to spread quickly, caused by its high solubility, and its permanency. Even in its tiniest proportions, five parts per billion, MTBE has an easily detectable smell.

"The stuff moves like wildfire. It increases exponentially. Once you find out you have a problem, you have a big problem. And once it's in, how do you get it out?" said Doug Marsano of the Denver-based American Water Works Association, a consortium of water agencies that has urged President Clinton to ban MTBE.

According to Marsano, the chemical has been detected in varying amounts in all 50 states. Significant MTBE contamination also has been found in such pastoral areas as Ronan, Mont., and Spring Green, Wis., as well as in major cities like Dallas, Denver and Las Vegas.

"You can see it in a contiguous line from California to the East Coast. One of the great questions here is why a chemical that we don't have a lot of information about is being used in such a widespread manner," Marsano said. "At this point, we think it is a problem in every state, but just how significant a problem we don't know."

A European study in the mid-1990s linked MTBE to liver and kidney tumors in mice. The danger to humans is unknown.

"At the levels we're seeing in drinking water, there is no direct human study that shows cause and effect. The studies being used to assess risk are essentially studies being done on animals," said California's top drinking water official, Dr. Dave Spath of the Department of Health Services. "But the problem with MTBE is whether there is a significant future threat because of all these tanks that have leaked over many years."

As a result, California - the nation's No. 1 user of MTBE, with about 11 percent of all fuel containing the substance - has banned it by the end of 2002, and other states are expected to follow suit. Eight Northeastern states from New Jersey to Maine joined to ask Congress to allow them to decide whether MTBE or similar clean-air additives should be put in their gasoline.

And an Environmental Protection Agency panel has recommended strengthening programs to reduce MTBE's presence in drinking water.

The MTBE industry defends the additive.

"Because of cleaner-burning gasoline with MTBE, cities like Los Angeles are enjoying their best air quality in 50 years," said Terry Wigglesworth, executive director of the Oxygenated Fuels Association. "MTBE has not only met, but exceeded expectations."

MTBE, called an oxygenate because it adds oxygen to gasoline, was developed by oil companies in the 1970s to boost octane and replace lead. Smog fighters noticed that MTBE improved gasoline combustion and dramatically reduced tailpipe pollution, in some cases up to 40 percent.

Following the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1990, federal authorities ordered the phase-in of oxygenates in gasoline sold in the nation's smoggiest urban areas.

MTBE became the oxygenate of choice. The other best-known oxygenate, ethanol, is a type of alcohol made from corn and is used widely in the Midwest. Supporters of ethanol see it as safer; MTBE backers dispute that.

MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, is now found in the fuel consumed by 70 percent of the nation's cars. About 4.5 billion gallons of the additive are manufactured annually.

In Santa Monica, hit first and hardest by major MTBE contamination in 1995, the substance leaked into the water supply from the underground tanks of at least a dozen gas stations.

The city of 92,000 has shut down at least half of its wells and is now importing most of its water from Southern California's main wholesaler. The city believes the cleanup could cost $100 million,

"It was quite astounding," said Assistant City Attorney Joe Lawrence. "It went from a low of 20 ppb to a high of 600 ppb. Once it leaked out, it created havoc with the drinking water."

Glennville, a scenic mountain town of 300 in the Sierra Nevada, was devastated by the MTBE that spread into its water supply from a single leaking underground tank. The contamination registered 20,000 ppb.

"Even the ice had a strange odor," Lori Jauch said. "In the very beginning, when they came up and told us what was happening, I think everybody in the community was shocked. They had one meeting, and everybody was upset."

The town's water supply was shut down, and water is now trucked in from Bakersfield, an hour to the west.