SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- In a growing debate with manufacturers of the gasoline additive MTBE, the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) on July 20 vigorously disagreed with the fuel association's statement that MTBE detections in the state's groundwater are declining.
"(The Oxygenated Fuels Association's) claims contradict not only the experience of California's drinking water providers, but also with data gathered by the California Department of Health Services for five years," ACWA wrote in its reply.
The controversy was initially sparked when the EPA initially announced a gradual phaseout of the gasoline additive which was found to be a persistent groundwater pollutant. In an April 1999 letter to the Clinton Administration, California Gov. Gray Davis called for the complete removal of MTBE from the market, and asked for the Clinton Administration's help in getting a waiver from the Clean Air Act so that the state could phase out the additive more quickly.
After more than a year of waiting, ACWA on July 12 urged the administration to act on Davis' request, a letter which was answered immediately by the OFA. OFA claims that MTBE is not an overwhelming threat to California's drinking water as ACWA had indicated, and that "Detections of MTBE and other constituents of gasoline being found in groundwater actually are declining."
In the July 20 response, ACWA brought up several studies to support its position on the dangers and prevalence of MTBE.
In 1998, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory released a study showing that MTBE has been detected at more than 10,000 monitoring sites in California. Nationally, a recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey found MTBE in 14 percent of the urban drinking water wells it sampled. This study stated that as many as 9,000 wells in the US are within 1 km of a leaking underground storage tank which contains MTBE. The actual number of contaminated wells may be much less than 9,000, according to the authors of the report, "Occurrence of Gasoline Additive MTBE in Shallow Ground Water in Urban and Agricultural Areas" by Paul J. Squillace, Daryll A. Pope, and Curtis V. Price, USGS Fact Sheet 114-95. For a fact sheet on the study, visit the USGS web site at http://sd.water.usgs.gov/nawqa/vocns/.
In a fact sheet, the authors of the study clarified, "The article points out that not all leaking underground storage tank (LUST) sites will be a significant source of MTBE to ground water and to CWS wells," and that the 9,000 CWS figure is "undoubtedly an overestimate of the number of wells in those states with ... significant ... MTBE sites. The article points out, however, that the number 9,000 is so large that the actual number of CWSs that may ultimately be affected may well be worrisome."
In a report issued Jan. 17, the American Water Works Association estimates that costs to water utilities nationwide to prevent, clean up and treat water supplies contaminated with MTBE could run higher than $1 billion.
California, one of the hardest hit, has created the Underground Storage Tank Cleanup Fund (http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/~cwphome/ustcf/fundhome.htm). This fund attempts to help companies with the costs associated with remediating MTBE-polluted soil and water. More information, including sample cost estimates are available on the site.
In complying with the Clean Air Act, gasoline refiners inadvertently ran afoul of Clean Water standards. MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, is an additive in gasoline used by many refiners to provide oxygenates in fuels. Leaking storage tanks contaminated groundwater in many states before officials realized what was happening.
In 1999, the Clinton Administration convened a panel to investigate if MTBE posed special risks to water supplies. The panel presented confirmed In the Fall of 1999 that MTBE threatens water supplies.
The Administration subsequently called on Congress to phase down or eliminate MTBE. The Administration also has begun regulatory action to control MTBE under the Toxics Substances Control Act.
ACWA is a statewide organization whose 443 public agency members are responsible for about 90% of the water delivered in California. For more information on ACWA, visit ACWA's web site at http://www.acwanet.com.
The Oxygenated Fuels Association is an international trade association incorporated in 1983 to advance knowledge about the use of oxygenated fuel additives which improve the combustion performance of motor vehicle fuels, to reduce automobile emissions and air pollution. For more information about the Oxygenated Fuels Association, visit http://www.ofa.net/.
