MTBE pollutes water in California SANTA MONICA, Calif., June 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Santa Monica is the first city in California to be forced to shut down a large part of its drinking water supply because of contamination by the gasoline additive MTBE -- and may be the first large city in the nation to face such a problem. The city of about 100,000 population, adjacent to Los Angeles and famed for its beaches, has closed three of the five wells in a field that supplies 40 percent of its drinking water, because of excessive amounts of MTBE. Now, officials say, MTBE contamination may force closing of all wells --including the fourth and fifth wells -- in the Charnock Well field in nearby Mar Vista. MTBE, methyl tertiary butyl ether, is manufactured from methanol, a known poison, and used in California as a gasoline additive under clean-air programs. But MTBE is also drawing continuing criticism for possible adverse health effects. Many of the earlier complaints were based on inhaling fumes from MTBE-laced gasoline or the handling of gasoline, but more recently the complaints have shifted to concerns about water contamination. "In the event it (MTBE) escapes beneath the surface, there are brand-new concerns," the Los Angeles Times quoted Brian Johnson, a Santa Monica environmental official, as saying. "There is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to the environment." The Santa Monica problem with MTBE has brought new concerns throughout California, causing state officials to order increased monitoring of all water, in addition to monitoring sites near underground gasoline storage tanks. The increased monitoring in California comes at a time the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., has warned about the lack of data on MTBE and called for "immediate" monitoring throughout the U.S. In the Santa Monica water supply, MTBE has been detected at concentrations up to 600 parts per billion, resulting in the shutdown of the first three of the five wells in the field. One well, showing only 14 parts per billion of MTBE in initial testing, rose earlier this year to 490 parts per billion. The California Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has established an action level for MTBE of 35 parts per billion. California officials are also watching the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its decision on re-classifying MTBE as a human carcinogen, or cancer-causing agent. The federal agency has previously classified MTBE as a possible human carcinogen. The Los Angeles Times has reported that "regulators say they expect it will be upgraded later this year to a 'probable' trigger of cancer in humans." Santa Monica officials have said that if the problem of MTBE in their drinking water isn't resolved, they may have to abandon all the affected wells. The loss of the wells is projected to cost the city $2 million a year or more. Santa Monica is already buying more water from its Metropolitan Water District at a cost of an additional $22,000 a week, officials said. The MTBE contamination of the Santa Monica water supply is blamed on leaking underground gasoline tanks near the water field. CO: Fuels for the Future ST: California IN: ENV SU: 06/18/96 17:22 EDT LOS ANGELES, June 18 /PRNewswire/ -- California state, regional and local officials are working together as a task force to determine the extent of soil contamination by the gasoline additive MTBE, which has led to closing of drinking-water wells in Santa Monica and to concerns about tests in nearby Orange County. One Los Angeles environmental specialist said he now considers MTBE to be a "major problem," and expects to find incidents of water contamination beyond Santa Monica. In Orange County, high levels of MTBE have been detected at test wells near oil company service stations. The tests have been conducted at about 40 sites near the stations, and MTBE has been found in shallow monitoring wells. Orange County officials say they have been checking for MTBE since 1995, and so far no MTBE has turned up in tests of most of the 500 drinking-water wells in the county. MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, is a methanol-based additive used in gasoline as an oxygenate to help clean the air. Concerns have been expressed across the United States about possible health effects of the additive, the latest coming from a research arm of the National Academy of Sciences which said more data on MTBE is needed and called for immediate monitoring. Meanwhile, throughout California, state and local health and environmental offices, and teams of experts are studying the effects of MTBE, particularly water contamination. The Los Angeles Times, reporting on the water situation in Santa Monica and elsewhere, quoted one official, James Giannopoulos, principal engineer for the California Water Resources Control Board, as saying: "We're all working on it and gathering data. This is not going to go away." California has a detailed, on-going program of checking underground gasoline storage tanks, but in the past most of the concern has been for leaks of the so-called "BTEX" compounds -- benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene. MTBE, however, has been described in studies, as entering water "at a much faster rate than other gasoline components" and being more mobile in groundwater than the other compounds. MTBE has also been found slow to degrade. The California Department of Health Services earlier this year issued an "alert and monitoring advisory" about MTBE. Dr. David P. Spath, chief of the department's division of drinking water and environmental management, called MTBE "highly soluble in water" and although he considered contamination of public drinking water supply sources to be unlikely, said: "Factors such as the widespread use of MTBE and the historic problems with leaking fuel tanks give us reason for concern." Dr. Spath instructed public water systems in California to include MTBE in their analysis, and for water systems using wells "near sites of contamination or leaking underground storage tanks, we recommend that you consider monitoring for MTBE this year." CO: Fuels for the Future ST: California IN: ENV SU: 06/18/96 17:25 EDT