A cup of turpentine, on the House

November 24, 2003 (postpaper.com)

Water. We humans need it to live. In fact, we're comprised of just about 70 percent water, you and I. Yessir, we'd all be up a dry creek bed without water to drink. That's for sure.

Sadly, a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives voted last week that the water we drink isn't really so important after all. At least, it's not as important as making certain major oil and gas companies that manufacture a chemical additive called methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) don't have to fork over the $29 billion some independent estimates believe it will eventually cost to remove the turpentine taste and smell from any drinking water supply where as little as a few drops of MTBE have accumulated.

Haven't heard of MTBE? Trust me, you will. The Post reported on efforts by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) to test for MTBE in the state's drinking water supplies early in 2000. When the CBS news program "60 Minutes" aired a story in January 2000 about MTBE contamination in drinking water, host Steve Kroft speculated in his opening remarks that MTBE could become the biggest environmental story of the decade, easily becoming as synonymous with corporate environmental and humanitarian neglect as Agent Orange in the 1970s and PCBs in the 1980s and '90s.

From the look of things so far, Kroft may have hit it right on the button.

For the uninitiated, MTBE is a gasoline additive manufactured by companies like Exxon Mobil, Sunoco and BP Amoco. Designed to increase the oxygen content in gasoline, MTBE allows fuel to burn more efficiently, thereby reducing harmful tailpipe emissions. The product gained widespread use among gasoline companies because of the need to satisfy federal requirements mandated by the Clean Air Act of 1990.

But because the chemical is an oxygenate it is, unlike most other chemicals in gasoline, soluble in water. What that means to you and me -- and our drinking water supplies -- is that MTBE-spiked gasoline spilled in a filling station parking lot eventually becomes MTBE in the soil which, when combined with falling droplets of rain and the force of gravity, eventually leads to the turpentine taste/smell in your morning coffee that I mentioned earlier. In fact, it only takes one coffee cup filled with MTBE to contaminate 5 million gallons of otherwise drinkable water.

But, surely, the piddling amount of MTBE that makes its way into the soil beneath our feet in the manner I described above can't result in an overabundance of contamination, you might argue (assuming, of course, that you are a Republican). Well, if the small amounts of gasoline you or I spilled while filling our automobiles and lawnmowers and motorboats were the source of all the MTBE that ever made it into the soil, you might have a point, my Fox News Channel-watching friend. But that amount isn't all there is, not by a long shot.

Manufacturers, many of them located in Texas (that relevance of that fact will become obvious momentarily) generate around 4.5 billion gallons of MTBE a year, enough for every man, woman and child in the country to have his very own 16-gallon jug of the stuff. And all that MTBE has to go somewhere. After it gets mixed with gasoline and shipped to Chevron and Shell and Citgo stations around the country, the mixture is delivered into huge underground tanks located directly below the station's gas pumps.

Now, hold onto that image for just a moment.

Kroft reported in the "60 Minutes" piece that the EPA knew in 1987 -- three years before the passage of the Clean Air Act -- that MTBE contamination due to leaking underground storage tanks was possible and problematic.

"Known cases of drinking water contamination have been reported in four states, affecting 20,000 people," read the EPA memo obtained by CBS News. "It's possible that this problem could rapidly mushroom due to leaking underground storage tanks. The problem of groundwater contamination will increase as the proportion of MTBE in gasoline increases."

Despite the fact that MTBE causes leukemia, lymphoma and testicular cancer in heavy doses, the EPA told no one of the potential dangers associated with the leaking tanks. Instead, the agency quietly and quickly ordered every single underground gasoline storage tank at every filling station and petroleum supply facility in the country to be dug up and replaced by 1998. Some of these new tanks, Kroft reported, were already leaking a year later.

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is where the vast majority of the MTBE already in the nation's water supply originated. By 1997, according to a January 2001 report on MTBE contamination compiled by ADEM, there had been over 340,000 confirmed instances nationwide of petroleum releases into the soil from underground storage tanks. MTBE is today the second most common water contaminant in the country, having already turned up in drinking water from Portland, Maine to Portland, Or. and virtually everywhere in between.

Still, according to that same ADEM report, MTBE contamination is, so far, almost non-existent in Alabama. ADEM spokesman Scott Hughes told me Thursday that of 1,053 drinking water sources tested for MTBE contamination in 2000, only five showed any trace of the chemical. "Reformulated gasoline, or RFG, has a content of 10 percent MTBE," Hughes said. "In Alabama, we have fewer pollution concerns than most other states so most of the gasoline used in Alabama contains only 1 or 2 percent MTBE by volume. As a result, we have far fewer problems with MTBE in our drinking water supplies than other states."

Hughes said the highest level of contamination anywhere in Alabama in 2000 was only 8.39 parts per billion (ppb), far below the 20-40 ppb health advisory issued by the EPA. That number is based solely on odor and taste concerns, he explained. Hughes said the EPA still has not set a standard on what it considers an acceptable amount of MTBE in drinking water.

Alabamians may still be able to see their reflection in the well water, but a lot of people in California -- where pollution concerns have for decades necessitated the widespread use of MTBE in gasoline -- cannot. In 1996, MTBE in levels as high as 600 ppb were discovered in the drinking water supply in Santa Monica, a level six times higher than what even the foot-dragging EPA admits is a potential health concern. As a result, six of the town's 11 wells were shut down immediately. To this day, the city is spending over $3 million annually to purchase water diverted from the Colorado River. In 1997 in South Lake Tahoe, MTBE was discovered in the lake and the groundwater. Within a matter of weeks, a third of the town's wells had to be shut down.

On Nov. 24, Santa Monica officials announced that the town had reached a settlement with Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil to pay $92.5 million in order to rid the city's water supply of MTBE. South Lake Tahoe also recently received a settlement in the tens of millions from several major oil companies.

Enter the oil industry lobby who, after writing those two really big checks, began running up and down the halls of Congress shouting that their companies should not be held accountable for a product the government forced them to add to gasoline. This, despite the fact that federal gasoline regulations clearly state that the registration of MTBE as a fuel additive cannot be used to indicate endorsement, approval or certification by the EPA.

Vic Sher, the attorney who represented the town of Lake Tahoe, spelled it out succinctly in an October 2003 interview in the San Francisco Chronicle. "Companies have a responsibility of their own to make sure their products don't cause environmental destruction," he said. "They cannot hide behind permission from the government to avoid that responsibility."

Besides, as opponents of the liability exemption pointed out, the EPA gave the oil companies a choice of oxygenates: MTBE or ethanol. Oil companies chose MTBE because it was cheaper to make, even though they knew as early as 1981 that it was soluble in water and liable to spread into drinking water supplies.

Says who? Dr. Peter Garrett of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, that's who. Dr. Garrett and two colleagues from the American Petroleum Institute wrote a scathing report in 1981 after finding MTBE near a Shell station in Rockaway, N.J. Their paper cited serious problems regarding the solubility of MTBE and recommended the chemical either be stored in special containers or banned outright. The API waved off Garrett and his report, called him an alarmist, and turned the valves wide-open on MTBE production.

And now we come to the portion of the story where the House decides the optimum solution for cleaning up this mess is to have Mr. John Q. Taxpayer grab his ankles. If the House version of the energy bill is any indication, majority leader Tom DeLay (who is from Texas, where the majority of MTBE is manufactured; see, I told you that Texas tidbit was pertinent), and most of the rest of the Republican party don't believe the oil companies should reinvest -- in the interest of public health -- some of the billions of dollars the use of cheaper MTBE allowed them to collect for decades. "Not really a big deal, this MTBE-thing," the House said to the major oil companies last week. "We'll pay for your screw up."

"Drink up and bend over," they told the rest of us. The rest of us... Like the people of Glennville, Calif.

In 1997 Glennville, a town of about 300 residents in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, became a virtual ghost town after the water supply was found to contain the highest levels of MTBE ever recorded -- 20,000 ppb. The town's only gas station was shut down, but the number of contaminated wells increased. Oil company officials told the townspeople to take fewer and shorter showers, and to stop drinking and cooking with the water. For the last six years, the state of California has been trucking in water for the 14 families who remain in Glennville. The residents complain of skin rashes and intestinal problems, banks have stopped lending money, none of the residents have able to been sell their homes.

And their water smells and tastes like paint thinner.

Unfortunately, most of the 435 members of the House of Representatives cared a lot more about tax breaks for some of the very same oil companies responsible for manufacturing MTBE than they did about the results of over 20 years of ground water contamination or who will end up paying the billions it will eventually cost to sop up all that MTBE. At least the bill calls for an end to production of MTBE, but plainly the damage has already been done. Democrats in the Senate are fighting to remove the liability exemption in any final version of the energy bill. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., told the Associated Press on Nov. 24 that the Democrats' efforts may stall the energy bill until January.

Alas, Alabama currently has two Republican senators in Washington, D.C., so you can imagine how excited I am at the prospect of ever hearing my opinion on the MTBE liability exemption voiced on the Senate floor. Both senators have already indicated their strong support for the energy bill, with no mention of the many ills of MTBE in their website press releases. Still, if you feel as strongly as I do and wish to contact our senators and ask them to vote against any bill that includes an MTBE liability exemption you can call Richard Shelby at 202-224-5744, and Jeff Sessions at 202-224-4124.

Unless Democrats in the Senate somehow find a way to ensure the exclusion of a liability exemption for the big oil companies, and as incidents of MTBE contamination continue to rise nationwide, don't be surprised if a few years from now this chemical begins to impact all Americans' lives -- not to mention our wallets.

Instead of burdening taxpayers in affected areas with the costs of removing MTBE from their drinking water, Weitz & Luxenberg will aggressively go after the oil companies responsible. We want to do what is best not only for our clients, but for the environment and future generations as well. You have a right to clean, safe drinking water, and Weitz & Luxenberg is a powerful ally to have on your side. If you or your municipality needs our help, please fill out this simple form, call us at (800) 476-6070 or email us at clientrelations@weitzlux.com.

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see also:

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