Obviously this is a big worry to me, but it may be coming next to your state, or already be there. I know Alaska has outlawed this stuff. This is great stuff for the NWO people, raises the gas prices, keeps us out of our cars and kills us off. This is a prime of example of big money and "feel good" environmentalism. This stuff was NOT tested. It stinks to high heaven, it lowers your gas millage, so you have to use more of it. It is now my understanding that you should wear gloves when pumping your gas because it absorbs through your skin. It does not separate from water. It is also now being reported that all the brand new fiberglass underground gas tanks service stations owners were forced to put in by the EPA in California cannot contain this stuff. Fiberglass is being found in people's gas tanks. This stuff also eats up the rubber and plastic parts of your motor it comes in contact with.

..Drinking Water Help:

William S. Ottaway P.E. MTBE (Methyl tert Butyl Ether)

By Bill Ottawa

MTBE is an organic compound added to gasoline in some areas of the U.S. to increase octane and reduce carbon dioxide emmissions. Once it is in the ground, MTBE is less vulnerable to breakdown than other gasoline components. MTBE also travels far more quickly through the groundwater than other gasoline components, probably due to its high solubility in water. As a result, following a gasoline spill, MTBE is usually the first chemical to turn up in adjacent wells.

Tests on laboratory animals suggest that high exposure to MTBE may have an adverse effect on the central nervous system, blood components, liver, kidneys, adrenals, and reprductive systems. MTBE is classified as a possible human carcinogen (some evidence from studies on laboratory animals).

MTBE is most readily removed using packed tower aeration or activated carbon filtration  For more information see the Fact Sheet on "http://wwwsd.cr.usgs.gov/nawqa/pubs/factsheet/fs114.95/fact.html

MTBE from the USGS.

Also on MTBE "http://wwwsd.cr.usgs.gov/nawqa/pubs/ofr/ofr95.456/ofr.html"

A Preliminary Assessment of the Occurrence and Possible Sources of MTBE in Ground

Water of the United States (also published as USGS Open File Report OFR 95-456)

"http://wwwsd.cr.usgs.gov/nawqa/pubs/wrir/wrir96.4145/wrir.doc.html"

Occurrecne of the Gasoline Oxygenate MTBE and BTEX Compounds in Urban Stormwater in the United States, 1991-95: U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigation Report WRIR 96-4145, 6p.

HEALTH EFFECTS OF OXYGENATES

Methyl-tertiary-butyl ether has been used at low levels for several years as an octane enhancer in high-test fuels. Since wider utilization of MTBE in oxyfuels began in November 1992, some individuals and groups have expressed concern over the potential health effects of MTBE. Initially, people in a few areas (e.g. Fairbanks, AK) complained of acute symptoms, such as headaches and nausea, from breathing fumes associated with MTBE oxyfuels. The Office of Research and Development (ORD) of EPA evaluated the results of numerous health studies dating from 1987 and published a health risk assessment of MTBE an d MTBE oxyfuels in November 1993. This risk assessment by ORD was based primarily on toxicological and clinical studies of pure MTBE, epidemiological studies related to MTBE oxyfuels, and exposure estimates based on certain assumptions and limited measurements of MTBE levels in environments where MTBE oxyfuels were used.

Since ORDÆs 1993 assessment, very little new information has come to light, so the major conclusions about pure MTBE and MTBE oxyfuels have not changed. The present evaluation is intended to provide a risk perspective of MTBE in both oxyfuels and reformulated gasoline. Although reformulated gasoline is different from oxyfuels (as discussed earlier), our current conclusions are not significantly influenced by this difference. Basically, to detect differences between the fuels would require research on mixtures which has not yet been conducted. Thus, the conclusions are based primarily on the likely similarities in MTBE exposure between the two fuel classes. For example, acute exposures to reformulated gasoline, with its smaller concentration of MTBE (11% versus 15 %), will result in lower MTBE exposures and, hence, lower risks. Annual exposures to MTBE will be higher with reformulated gasoline because it will be used year-round, rather than just in the winter. For example, in the 1993 assessment, ORD estimated that highly exposed members of the general public living in areas with oxyfuels during the winter might receive annual exposures of about 0.02 ppm. Using similar information and assuming these same people lived in areas with reformulated gasoline the rest of the year, ORD estimated a high annual MTBE exposure of about 0.03 ppm. As will be discussed later, this difference in annual exposure estimates does not significantly influence the risk assessments of MTBE fuels.

Virtual MTBE  --  A good thing?

It seems that MTBE is showing up in our ground water, lakes, rivers and streams. This fact is not too alarming until you couple it with the results of several studies showing

MTBE as a carcinogen or cancer causing agent in rats to say the least. The million dollar question is simple...what about us! More and more information is leaking out which indicates that at best, humans should not be exposed to MTBE. Oil companies are calling it risky and are recommending that if we come in direct contact with it, seek

professional medical help. It is also estimated that at a level of 18 parts per million in our drinking water we will be able to clearly detect the presence of MTBE by smell and additionally our health is at risk by ingesting it. Ground water in the San Francisco Bay Area has risen from 0 to 6 parts per million during the fall of 1996.

Research has reveled that headaches, aggravated allergic symptoms, neurological (shaking) are commonly reported and attributed to MTBE poisoning. There are also reports that consecrated exposure to MTBE residues, like auto exhaust fumes are detected in the blood stream as sugars which our kidneys process into alcohol putting us at risk of being accused of a DUI by simply driving our cars. Tests, conducted on subjects in a garage with two running vehicles for 15 minutes show a significant level of alcohol in the bloodstream...and subjects appeared drunk. Nothing conclusive has linked MTBE directly to kidney or liver failure as yet however indications are that MTBE is not a good thing, at least in our Virtual opinion. MTBE was apparently developed in Saudi Arabia at a developmental laboratory for an American oil company. We can also see that apparently a ton of money is being made on MTBE...especially in California where cars are a dime a dozen :-) and it is our best guess that most of this ton of money is being delivered to our oil companies...but who knows, only the shadow knows for sure! I know that the corrosive effect on metal, rubber & plastic is costing us a ton of money, and everyone seems to be sickish in my family this year, worse than ever before, or is it in our Virtual heads? Here are a few links to places substantiating some of this MTBE garbage...hey, I got it...lets 86 MTBE just to be safe.

W.Yancey

Santa Monica water supply threatened by MTBE -- July 1996 -- Water News Online

SANTA MONICA, Calif.

-- Santa Monica is the first city in California to be forced to shut down a large part of its drinking-water supply because ofcontamination by the gasoline additive MTBE -- and may be the first large city in the nation to face such a problem.

Excessive amounts of MTBE in water supplies have forced this city of about 100,000 --adjacent to Los Angeles and famed for its beaches - to close three of the five wells in a field that supplies 40 percent of its drinking water.

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, or 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 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 five water wells. One well, showing only 14 parts per billion of MTBE when first tested, rose earlier this year to 490 parts per billion.

The California Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has established a level for MTBE of 35 parts per billion.

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 when 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.

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. It is now listed as a possible human carcinogen but is expected to be upgraded later this year to a "probable" cause of cancer in humans.

Santa Monica officials have said 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 the 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 well field

I found this article rather amusing---Let's not panic-- So much for the Sacramento Bee fighting our state legislature and the environmental guys

"The Sacramento Bee: Editorial/Opinion News

"This material Copyright 1997 The Sacramento Bee"

MTBE in drinking water (Published Jan. 21, 1997)

The water pollution threat posed by MTBE, an ingredient of California's new reformulated gas, merits concern and further study, but it should not lead to panic or abandonment of the state's smog-fighting gasoline. As The Bee's Chris Bowman reported the other day, the chemical has been found in worrisome quantities in reservoirs and groundwater destined for human consumption.

Methyl tert-butyl ether is an oxygen-bearing compound derived from natural gas that was first mixed with gasoline in the 1970s. Its effect on human health is unknown, although the federal EPA has set 70 parts per billion as a health advisory level. But the substance smells at concentrations much lower than that, giving off the odor of turpentine, unpalatable to consumers and, for water district officials who've run into it so far, unmarketable.

Only recently have state officials started monitoring for the substance. Seven drinking- water wells in the city of Santa Monica were abandoned when MTBE, which had leaked from underground gasoline tanks, was discovered in them. MTBE has also been found in lakes and reservoirs where recreational boating takes place. A host of toxics, including MTBE, spills into lakes when unburned gasoline leaks from the engines of motorboats and jet skis. Even without the recent concerns about MTBE, tougher standards for such engines are in order or, if that's not possible, perhaps boating bans on lakes with water destined human consumption. The state's ongoing program to detect and clean up leaking underground gasoline tanks will help protect ground-water.

One final intriguing question is why MTBE is in gasoline in the first place. California air quality officials say that reformulated gasoline that would meet the state's clean air standards could be manufactured without MTBE. The requirement for that chemical or other oxygenates is contained in the federal rules, not California's. A measure introduced in Congress last year by San Diego Rep. Brian Bilbray, a former member of the state Air Resources Board, to substitute California's gasoline regulation for the federal one failed. Given MTBE's widespread appearance in reservoirs and wells in this state, that legislative effort needs to be renewed with greater urgency

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