MTBE In Drinking Water

An EWG analysis of data from state environmental agencies finds that drinking water supplies for over 15 million Americans are contaminated with MTBE, a suspected carcinogen added to gasoline that even at trace levels renders water undrinkable due to foul taste and odor. The new data emerge as Republican leaders are pushing to load pending energy legislation with a plan - backed by big oil companies and oil-state politicians - to shield MTBE manufacturers from pollution liability claims. The provision would shift cleanup costs to consumers and taxpayers. Water utilities, mayors, state attorneys general and environmentalists are fighting the proposal.

Water quality data obtained by EWG through the Freedom of Information Act and state Open Records Laws shows that MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, has been found in test samples of source water or finished drinking water from 1,515 public water systems in 28 states. An estimated 15 to 40 million people are served tap water by utilities with MTBE contamination somewhere in the system.

MTBE is an unregulated contaminant and water utilities are not required to test regularly for its presence in finished tap water. Not every consumer in every contaminated system is drinking MTBE, but if House Republican leaders have their way, every individual served water by these utilities will be forced to pay the full cost of MTBE cleanup.

California has the most severe contamination with 127 systems serving more than 30 million people reporting MTBE contamination somewhere in the system. Outside of California, the most extensive contamination is in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, where Massachusetts, New York and New Hampshire each have over 150 water systems with MTBE contamination problems. These figures, the best available, do not include MTBE contamination of private wells. (Click here for state list)

The data also show the contamination is getting worse. The number of U.S. drinking water systems reporting MTBE contamination increased six-fold between 1996 and 2002, from 112 to 637, and the number of states reporting problems doubled from 11 to 22.

MTBE detections in drinking water are increasing

* Column does not add because many systems take wells off-line when MTBE is detected and then do not retest those wells. These systems may not report MTBE contamination in subsequent years.

Source: Environmental Working Group. Derived from data obtained from state agencies.

In the majority of the affected communities, consumers are unaware of the contamination because water utilities take steps to protect them as soon as MTBE is detected. Contamination as low as 2 parts per billion of MTBE can produce a harsh chemical odor and taste that can cause tap water to be unpotable. EWG analysis found more than 700 communities with source or finished water levels at 2 ppb or higher MTBE. To cope with the problem, water utilities either blend MTBE-contaminated water with clean sources to dilute the chemical, install costly systems to remove it, or abandon affected wells and find new water sources.

The costs of such remedies for large cities alone could eventually reach $29 billion, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

EWG found that MTBE contamination affects communities of all sizes - with contamination reported from large systems like San Diego, where the water utility serves 1.2 million people, to the Millbrook Country Day School in Massachusetts, serving 25 students and teachers. MTBE has been detected in water supplies serving 30 million people in California, about 2 million in both New Jersey and Massachusetts, 195,000 in Maryland and more than 900,000 in both Pennsylvania and Texas. (Click here for full state list)

In some cities, such as Santa Monica and South Lake Tahoe, Calif., a substantial portion of the local water supply has been contaminated, while in many others only one or two detections of MTBE have been made. But this last fact is less reassuring than it is worrisome. The records obtained by EWG indicate that in almost all systems with just one positive detection of MTBE, tests for the compound were conducted in the last two years. Water systems nationwide are in the middle of a years-long process of meeting federal requirements mandating testing for "unregulated contaminants" like MTBE. This suggests that MTBE is only now showing up in many drinking water systems, and detections will continue to increase for some time. That prospect makes the scheme to shield MTBE polluters from liability as part of national energy legislation all the more troubling.

Republicans Seek Protections for Polluters in Energy Bill

MTBE is an "oxygenate" that oil companies once claimed makes gasoline burn cleaner and more efficiently; it was introduced as a replacement when lead was banned from gasoline. But MTBE is also a foul-tasting and nasty-smelling compound that spreads rapidly when gasoline escapes from leaky underground storage tanks or other sources. Once in soil or water, MTBE breaks down very slowly while it accelerates the spread of other contaminants in gasoline, such as benzene, a known carcinogen.

Since 1995, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified MTBE as a possible cause of cancer in people. Eighteen states have passed measures to ban or significantly limit the use of MTBE in gasoline, and a nationwide ban is currently under consideration by Congress.

Hundreds of communities across the U.S. face many millions of dollars in costs to clean up MTBE contamination or find replacement water supplies. But the same proposal in Congress that would ban MTBE would also let the main culprits off the hook for the cleanup bill. (Click for USA Today - Energy bill provision may stop suits over water polluted by gas additive)

A paragraph buried deep in a massive federal energy bill, whose final form is now being hammered out by House and Senate negotiators, would give the makers and users of MTBE immunity from defective product lawsuits. That is precisely the legal theory that has been used by some communities to win multimillion-dollar damages from the oil companies for knowingly making, distributing and selling MTBE. Republican leaders Billy Tauzin (LA), Joe Barton (TX) and Tom Delay (TX) are the prime supporters of the liability shield.

Last year, a California jury in South Lake Tahoe found five oil and chemical companies liable for deliberately selling a defective product - MTBE - while failing to warn of its pollution risks. (Click for verdict) After the verdict, the companies agreed to pay $60 million in damages. Recently, the City of Santa Monica settled a similar lawsuit, with 18 oil companies agreeing to pay damages still to be determined.

If the MTBE liability shield is included in the final energy bill, it would make cities and local water districts powerless to force oil companies to pay for cleanup. While gas station owners could be sued over leaks, it is often difficult to trace precise sources of MTBE contamination, and most gas stations are small businesses unable to pay the millions of dollars often required to remedy MTBE pollution.

Oil Industry Claims Are Refuted By Internal Company Documents

The oil industry and its friends in Congress say it's only fair to shield MTBE makers from lawsuits, because they claim that the government mandated oil companies to add MTBE to gasoline in the first place, to help clean the air. But another story is told by internal industry documents and depositions made public in the California lawsuits. The documents, provided to EWG by attorneys for the communities, show it was the oil companies themselves who lobbied hard for the MTBE mandate because they made the additive and stood to profit.

A paper trail dating back almost 25 years shows how the oil companies took an unwanted byproduct of gasoline refining that was expensive to dispose of and created a profitable market for it. Beginning in the mid-1980s, well in advance of the 1992 federal mandate to reformulate gasoline to meet the standards of the Clean Air Act, the petrochemical industry promoted MTBE to U.S. and state regulators as the additive of choice - knowing at the time that it would very likely contaminate ground water. Only much later did the companies admit that MTBE doesn't do much to reduce air pollution after all.

In the South Lake Tahoe case, a top ARCO executive admitted under oath: "The EPA did not initiate reformulated gasoline . . . [T]he oil industry . . . brought this [MTBE] forward as an alternative to what the EPA had initially proposed." He testified that the EPA "was actually promoting using methanol blends" as an oxygenate. (Click for testimony)

Secret oil company studies from as early as 1980 show the industry knew that MTBE contaminated ground water virtually everywhere it was being used. Despite that knowledge, by 1986, the oil industry was adding 54,000 barrels of MTBE to gasoline each day. By 1991, one year before the EPA required the use of oxygenates, the industry was using more than 100,000 barrels of MTBE per day in reformulated gasoline. (Click for letter)

A Shell hydrogeologist testified in the South Lake Tahoe case that he first dealt with an MTBE spill in 1980 in Rockaway, N.J., where seven MTBE plumes were leaking from underground storage tanks. (Click for testimony) By 1981, when the Shell scientist wrote an internal report on the Rockaway plumes, the joke inside Shell was that MTBE really stood for "Most Things Biodegrade Easier." (Later, other versions of the joke circulated, including "Menace Threatening Our Bountiful Environment," or in an apparent premonition of the oil companies' legal vulnerability, "Major Threat to Better Earnings.") (Click for excerpt)

Shell was not the only company with foreknowledge of MTBE contamination problems. An environmental engineer for ExxonMobil (the companies merged in 1999) testified that he learned of MTBE contamination from Exxon gasoline in 1980, when a tank leak in Jacksonville, Md., fouled wells for a planned subdivision. The ExxonMobil engineer said it was learned MTBE had also leaked into the subdivision's wells from a Gulf and an Amoco station. (Click for testimony)

In 1981, an ARCO memo said leaking tanks were "a major problem.... The issue is essentially a health/safety and environmental one. Escaping vapors can seep into basements, sewers and conduits, creating not only a nuisance but the danger of explosion and/or fire. Escaping gasoline also enters and pollutes the water table. (Groundwater is a major source of the U.S. water supply.) Certain chemicals in gasoline (namely the aromatics like benzene) may be carcinogenic or toxic in certain quantities." (Click for document)

These and other documents prove that knowing fully well that their tanks leaked and that leaking MTBE had the potential to contaminate water supplies, ARCO and other companies not only went ahead and added MTBE to their gasoline, but agressively promoted it to state and federal regulators as an environmentally friendly product.

In 1987, a representative of ARCO Chemical, which was rapidly expanding its MTBE production, testified before the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission that the additive would reduce emissions and improve gas mileage and that consumers didn't need to be warned about the presence of MTBE in gasoline. (Click for excerpt) Nothing was said about the leak and contamination problems that ARCO and the rest of the industry had known about for at least seven years. ARCO's representative testified that in the 1980s he played a similar role in "assisting" the states of Arizona and Nevada in the development of oxygenate programs - programs that resulted in those states adopting MTBE. (Click for testimony)

At the same time, the oil industry was agressively attacking non-industry studies that were beginning to find water pollution problems caused by MTBE.

In 1986, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) published a report documenting extensive MTBE groundwater contamination in the state. The authors identified MTBE as a "rapidly spreading groundwater contaminant" and discussed the option that "MTBE could be abandoned as an additive in gasoline stored underground" or that gas with MTBE "be stored only in double-contained facilities." (Click for excerpt)

The Maine DEP report was perhaps the earliest warning from government health officials about the dangers of MTBE. To the oil companies, it was a call to arms. Documents show that even as they were internally disseminating this study and treating its findings seriously, the oil companies joined forces to attack the study's authors and the article's "damage" in an effort to discredit the findings and downplay the risks of MTBE. A 1987 ARCO memo detailed the continued attack on the authors and their research. (Click for document)

Internally, however, the industry admitted the Maine paper was a threat precisely because it was scientifically credible. A 1987 letter from an ARCO refining executive to his Unocal counterpart admits the MTBE task force didn't "have any data to refute comments made in the paper that MTBE may spread further in a plume or may be more difficult to remove/clean up than other gasoline constituents." (Click for document)

There were voices within the oil industry that warned against the use of MTBE, on grounds both of public health and cleanup costs from the inevitable leaks. An April 1984 memo from an Exxon employee said:

"[W]e have ethical and environmental concerns that are not too well defined at this point; e.g., (1) possible leakage of [storage] tanks into underground water systems of a gasoline component that is soluble in water to a much greater extent [than other chemicals], (2) potential necessity of treating water bottoms as a 'hazardous waste,' [and] (3) delivery of a fuel to our customers that potentially provides poorer fuel economy.... " (Emphasis added.) (Click for document)

The memo was ignored by the employee's superiors.

The record is clear. Individual oil companies, and the industry as a whole, knew that adding MTBE to gasoline posed a serious threat to water supplies everywhere it was used. With full knowledge of the danger - but also of the profit they stood to make - they lobbied hard for the use of MTBE, then withheld or covered up evidence of its environmental and health risks.

Now that their own words and documents have surfaced to prove their culpability, oil companies offer one demonstrably false defense: "The government made us do it." And they are looking to Republican leaders to use the energy bill to protect them-instead of protecting water suppliers and consumers-from having to pay billions in cleanup costs for MTBE contamination in tap water.

EPA Draft Says MTBE a 'Likely' Cause of Cancer

WASHINGTON, July 11 — A EPA draft risk assessment says MTBE, the gasoline additive that has contaminated drinking water in at least 29 states, is a "likely" human carcinogen, according to agency sources.

An EPA official who reviewed an earlier version of the document told Environmental Working Group (EWG) that the risk assessment's most notable finding for the first time links MTBE to cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma, with toxicological endpoints similar to known carcinogens such as benzene and butadiene. Previously, EPA had classified MTBE as a "possible" cause of cancer, and concerns about contamination centered on the fact that in small doses its foul stench renders water undrinkable.

The EPA official said the document's authors completed their draft more than a year ago. It has been circulating within the agency for review and has already been approved by the Office of Research and Development's National Center for Environmental Assessment. Once all EPA divisions have signed off on it, it must still go through external review.

"People have been trying to get this out of the agency forever," said the official.

If approved, the finding will rock the current debate in Congress over whether the oil companies who make and use MTBE should be held responsible for cleaning up drinking water contaminated by the chemical leaking from underground gasoline storage tanks. According to state water agencies' records compiled by EWG, MTBE has been detected in more than 1,800 water systems across the country.

The American Water Works Association and the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies released studies last month estimating nationwide cleanup costs at between $25 billion and $33 billion, and possibly reaching $85 billion. The finding that MTBE is a likely carcinogen would add urgency to cleanup efforts, causing costs to soar.

The House has passed an energy bill, pushed by Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, that would bar communities and water systems from suing MTBE makers for knowingly manufacturing and distributing a defective product — even though documents from two California lawsuits show the oil industry knew as early as 1979 that the compound was a threat to water supplies but still pushed for its use as a gasoline additive to make fuel burn cleaner.

"We knew the idea to exempt MTBE makers from lawsuits was bad news for taxpayers. Now EPA is learning how dangerous it would be for public health," said EWG President Ken Cook. "No matter how the risk assessment finally comes out, this is clearly not the time to be letting the makers of this chemical off the hook."

 

GOP Energy Bill Presents Historic Threat to Environment

WASHINGTON — Dozens of provisions in the GOP energy bill agreement pending in Congress make it a historic threat to the environment, according to Environmental Working Group (EWG) President Ken Cook. None are more outrageous, however, than the historic provision that would block efforts by states, counties, a school board and even a Catholic chapel to get oil companies to clean up drinking water pollution from the toxic gasoline additive, MTBE.

The additive was known by manufacturers to leak from older gasoline storage tanks and spread quickly to drinking water supplies. However, according to internal industry documents posted at EWG’s website, www.ewg.org, the industry promoted the government’s adoption of the additive despite the risks. Now that the industry’s own internal documents have come back to haunt it in a series of courtroom defeats, oil refiners, championed by House Majority Leader Tom Delay, have made an all-out effort to make MTBE lawsuits against them illegal.

The industry is now claiming that state governments and Congress “ordered” it to use the additive, and it has rained $70 million on lawmakers and their political parties, “with about three-fourths of it going to Republicans,” according to a recent Associated Press story using figures from the Center for Responsive Politics.

The bill also moves back the phase-out deadline of the toxic gasoline additive to December of 2014, puts the phase-out at the complete discretion of governors and the President, and it gives $2 billion to refiners for “transition assistance” in phasing out the chemical — including to refiners that have already phased it out.

“The MTBE liability waiver is a $29 billion rip-off for consumers, taxpayers and property owners. Never has so much been given to so few at the expense of so many,” said EWG President Ken Cook. “This is a complete outrage perpetrated on millions of Americans in at least 28 states to shield polluters in Texas and Louisiana,” Cook said.

Cook added: “We believe this is an unprecedented effort by Congress to reach into the courts to block litigation that is holding polluters accountable for the damages they have caused. As such, it is an incredibly dangerous precedent.”

MTBE, or methyl tertiary-butyl ether, was promoted for areas with heavy smog because it speeds the burning of harmful gasoline compounds that contribute to smog.

The pollution lawsuit pre-emption would be made retroactive until September 5 of this year, affecting lawsuits filed, the states of New Hampshire, Connecticut, California and others. A list of the lawsuits that have been filed are available at http://wwww.ewg.org/node/22033.

The costs of the MTBE cleanup throughout the 28 states in which it has polluted underground sources of drinking water is roughly $29 billion.

The Environmental Working Group is a non-profit research and advocacy organization that uses the power of information to protect public health and the environment.

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It's 'exploring', not 'drilling'

When polling showed voters worried about the environmental impacts of the GOP's energy plans, "Republican energy language" from focus group guru Frank Luntz helped change the subject.

Ken Cook, Environmental Working Group

Until Republican Representative Billy Tauzin (LA) and Senator Pete Domenici (NM) disgorged the massive national energy legislation from their House-Senate "conference committee" on Saturday, only the two of them, and the handful of aides and energy lobbyists who've been holed up for the secret drafting sessions, knew for sure what was in it.

Download a PDF file of the Luntz Memo on Energy

But while the details of the energy bill have been kept from the public and the rest of Congress until now, what Republicans would say at its unveiling, regardless of its content, could have been predicted with precision two years ago—by anyone who read the detailed, 23-page energy script prepared by the party's preeminent pollster and focus-group guru, Frank Luntz.

Sure enough, last Friday (Nov. 14) Tauzin, Domenici and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay dutifully stressed the single most important message Luntz offered in his energy memo: talk about the “comprehensive energy solution” and plan, not the specifics. Because the specifics would raise the only real threat to the GOP's energy proposals, a public backlash over its environmental impacts. "Environmental extremists will try to bury all energy solutions by focusing on whatever is the most controversial element of your program," Luntz warns. "That is why you must stress again and again that you support a "truly comprehensive energy solution," from energy exploration and diversifying resources to research and conservation measures."

Tauzin began his remarks by saying: "It's 30 years this year, 30 years ago when we suffered through the Arab oil embargo, and this country went through the terrible lesson of not having a comprehensive energy policy to protect our country with safe, reliable, affordable energy to keep our economy and our culture going." Tauzin said "comprehensive energy policy" five more times on Friday. (He also managed to work in "Arab oil embargo", evocative of "OPEC", which Luntz says "is the enemy".) Domenici claimed that, while selected provisions might inspire threats of a Senate filibuster, a 'comprehensive thought pattern' would lead to passage. DeLay's prepared statement said: "The comprehensive energy plan may not be the sexiest or most tangible legislation we pass this year, but there are few other issues that are more critical to job creation, our security, and our quality of life."

Luntz's script for the Republicans' energy agenda, distributed in late 2001 and early 2002 to the Bush Administration, congressional leaders and his assorted business clients, had one overarching purpose: to deflect potentially fatal environmental criticism of the GOP’s energy plans. "The only weakness in Republican energy language involves environmental concerns," the Luntz energy memo warned. "Americans want their energy always available, but they also want it cheap and clean."

Luntz's energy memo is of the same vintage as another notorious “messaging” piece he wrote coaching Republicans how to talk about green issues without arousing the powerful suspicions voters harbor about the GOP's environmental philosophy, record and plans. "The environment is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general—and President Bush in particular—are most vulnerable," his environmental memo said. But instead of shifting their many extreme environmental policies towards the moderate, nonpartisan mainstream, Luntz advised Republicans to tell different "stories" about them, using focus-grouped language designed to airbrush the harshly anti-environmental reputation that even Republican voters acknowledge.

Luntz’s work on energy policy displays the same flair for simplifying political rhetoric that Luntz employed in drafting the "Contract with America," the platform Newt Gingrich used to unite Republicans and win control of the House of Representatives in the 1994 elections.

The energy memo offers Republicans a playbook for winning the "communications war" required to get the energy industry's wish list enacted into law. His memo provides "Words that Work," "The Perfect One-Minute Sound-Bite," ready-to-speak canned stump speeches, and suggestions for visual props. And reminiscent of scriptwriters who invent elaborate personal histories to lend depth to their characters, Luntz suggests ecological back-stories Republicans can assume to "personalize" their interest in energy policies that protect the environment. If asked about the impacts of their energy plan on the environment, for example, Luntz tells Republicans to begin their answer by saying: "My family loves the outdoors and is committed to keeping it clean and beautiful. We hike in the mountains, and my kids like to fish in the rivers nearby."

So, when the energy bill rolls out, Republicans talked about blackouts—a lot. Luntz tells Republicans never to miss an opportunity to remind Americans about recent blackouts—the ones in California are repeatedly cited in the memo, though today the East Coast blackouts of August are fresher examples—and to scare people with the specter of more power outages if the Republican bill is not passed. Luntz labels as “The Single Strongest” argument: “If we fail to act, Americans will face more and more widespread blackouts.” Like most other energy problems, Luntz urges that blackouts be blamed on "radical environmentalists" who have stood in the way of a modernized electricity supply. Republicans can be expected to remind Americans that “when you flick the switch, you have a right to expect the light to go on.”

Likewise, gasoline prices and bills for electricity and home heating will rise, and the country will be told that things will only get worse if the Republican energy legislation is not passed. Price caps and stronger regulation of utilities are not the answer because energy price hikes are attributable to...radical environmentalists, who have prevented pipelines and power plants from being built and modernized, and otherwise blocked efforts to make America energy independent. The Republican bill will make America "more independent" by unleashing "incredible developments in energy research, exploration and technology that will result in minimal impact on the environment."

Republicans will also talk a good deal about "foreign oil." Luntz advises them that Americans are "extremely uncomfortable" that we are dependent on others for energy. He knows that when "foreign oil" is mentioned, Americans immediately think of OPEC and the Middle East—as opposed to our top source of foreign oil, Canada. "Of all the players in the energy debate, no one is more hated than OPEC," Luntz told them. "Let me be clear: OPEC is the enemy."

But above all, Luntz says, Republicans must avoid detailed debates over the environmental impacts of specific energy bill proposals. Because if enough elements are challenged on environmental grounds, it will destroy the grand bargain that is energy legislation by setting diverse energy interests against one another—a variation on the dynamic that has made it difficult for Republicans to manage the greed of energy interests and produce a bill.

Frank Luntz’s script for GOP energy policy, “Energy: Preparing for the Future,” is posted at www.ewg.org.

The Environmental Working Group is a non-profit research and advocacy organization that uses the power of information to protect public health and the environment.

 

MTBE Liability Waiver

These communities and water suppliers have litigation pending to reclaim damages for MTBE pollution of public drinking water sources. These lawsuits would be nullified by the MTBE immunity clause in the proposed Energy Bill.

California — 19 Communities or Water Supplies Affected

California-American Water Company (Monterrey) California-American Water Company (Sacramento County) Carmichael Water District Citrus Heights Water District City of Elk Grove City of Riverside City of Roseville City of Sacramento Del Paso Manor Water District Fair Oaks Water District Florin Resource Conservation District Martin Silver, et. al. Quincy Community Services District Rio Linda Elverta Community Water District Sacramento County Water Agency Sacramento Groundwater Authority Sacramento Suburban Water District San Juan Water District The People of the State of California

Connecticut — 9 Communities or Water Supplies Affected

Cherry Brook School Childhood Memories Collinsville Board of Education Columbia Board of Education Horace Porter School Town of East Hampton American Distilling and Mfg. Co. Inc. Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel United Water Connecticut, Inc.

Florida — 1 Community / Water Supply Affected

Escambia County Utilities Authority

Illinois — 4 Communities or Water Supplies Affected

Crystal Lake Island Lake Village of East Alton (Class Action) Woodstock

Indiana — 2 Communities or Water Supplies Affected

Town of Mishuwaka City of Rockport

Iowa — 3 Communities or Water Supplies Affected

City of Galva City of Ida Grove City of Sioux City

Kansas — 3 Communities or Water Supplies Affected

Bel Aire Chisholm Creek Utility Authority Dodge City

Massachusetts — 62 Communities or Water Supplies Affected

Brimfield Housing Authority (Brimfield, MA) Centerville-Osterville-Marsons Mills Water Department Chelmsford Water District (Chelmsford, MA) Dedham Westwood Water District City of Brockton City of Methuen City of Peabody Cotuit Fire District Water Department (Cotuit, MA) East Chelmsford Water District (Chelsford, MA) Hillcrest Water District (Leicester, MA) Leicester Water Supply District (Leicester, MA) Massasoit Hills Trailer Park, Inc. North Chelmsford Water District (Chelsford, MA) North Raynham Water District Sandwich Water District South Sagamore Water District Sudbury Water District Town of Avon Town of Bedford Town of Bellingham Town of Charlton Town of Danvers Town of Dover Town of Dudley Town of Duxbury Town of East Bridgewater Town of East Brookfield Town of Easton Town of Edgartown Town of Franklin Town of Halifax Town of Hanover Town of Hanson Town of Holliston Town of Hudson Town of Marion Town of Maynard Town of Merrimac Town of Millis Town of Monson Town of Natick Town of Norfolk Town of North Attleborough Town of North Reading Town of Norton Town of Norwell Town of Pembroke Town of Reading Town of Spencer Town of Stoughton Town of Tewksbury Town of Tyngsboro Town of Ware Town of Wayland Town of West Bridgewater Town of West Brookfield Town of Weymouth Town of Wilmington Town of Yarmouth United Methodist Church (Wellfleet, MA) Westport Federal Credit Union Westview Farm, Inc. (Monson, MA)

New Hampshire — 1 Community / Water Supply Affected

City of Portsmouth

New Jersey — 15 Communities or Water Supplies Affected

Borough of Penns Grove City of Bridgeton City of Camden City of Gloucester City Elizabethtown Water Company Mount Holly Water Company Mount Laurel Municipal Utilities Authority New Jersey American Water Company, Inc. Penns Grove Water Supply Company, Inc. Township of Montclair United Water Arlington Hills, Inc. United Water Hampton, Inc. United Water New Jersey, Inc. United Water Toms River, Inc. United Water Vernon Hills, Inc.

New York — 8 Communities or Water Supplies Affected

Franklin Square Water District Serves the communities of: Franklin Square, Elmont, Stuart Manor, Floral Park Great Neck North Serves the communities of: Villages of Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Kensington, Kings Point, Saddle Rock and portions of Great Neck Plaza, Thomaston, portions of unincorporated areas of the town of North Hempstead within the service territory Long Island Water Corporation Serves the communities of: Atlantic Beach, Baldwin, Baldwin Harbor, Barnum Island, Bay Park, Cedarhurst, East Atlantic Beach, East Rockaway, Harbor Isle, Hewlett, Hewlett Bay Park, Hewlett Harbor, Hewlett Neck, Inwood, Meadowmere, Island Park, Lakeview, Lawrence, Lynbrook, Malverne, Malverne Park-Oaks, North Lynbrook, Oceanside, Roosevelt, South Hempstead, Valley Stream, Valley Stream South, West Hempstead (part), Woodmere, Woodsburgh Nassau County Port Washington Water District Serves the communities of: Port Washington, Manorhaven, Port Washington North, Baxter Estates, parts of Flower Hill, parts of Plandome Manor United Water New York, Inc. Serves the communities of: Orangetown, Haverstraw, Ramapo, Clarkstown, Stony Point Village of Sands Point Western Nassau Water Authority Serves the communities of: Town of Hempstead, Village of Floral Park, Village of New Hyde Park, Town of North Hempstead, Village of Stewart Manor, Village of Bellerose, Village of South Floral Park, Village of Garden City

Virginia — 3 Communities or Water Supplies Affected

Buchanan County School Board Greenville County Water & Sewer Authority Patrick County School Board

 

Big Oil pushed MTBE while hiding dangers-so who is going to pay to clean it up?

The oil industry's friends in Congress say it's only fair to shield MTBE makers from lawsuits, since, they claim, it was the government that mandated oil companies to reformulate gas with MTBE in the first place, to clean the air. But a different story has emerged from internal industry documents and depositions, made public in recent successful lawsuits.

Presented here are some industry documents that show the standard oil industry line of "the government made us add MTBE" is patently untrue, and that they haven't been forthcoming about what they knew and when they new it.

Document Gallery

Internal Memo 1: Shell employees had many joke nicknames for MTBE

Internal Memo 2: Exxon employee expresses concerns about MTBE in 1984

Internal Memo 3: Exxon employee outlines problems with MTBE

Internal Memo 4: Exxon employee addresses other reasons for concern

Internal Memo 5: Maine DEP identifies major MTBE groundwater contamination problems; industry disinformation campaigns begin.

Internal Memo 6: Industry — not government agencies — pressed for use of MTBE.

For the full story of MTBE using the oil industry's own words, read EWG's report, "With Knowledge"

GAO Report Shows States Still Have "a Number of Cleanups to Initiate or Complete"

This figure, from page 13 of the May 21, 2002 GAO report on MTBE contamination from underground storage tanks, shows that while states have made progress, seven states still have more than 5,000 releases that they have not fully addressed. Most of the 13 states contacted by GAO cited a lack of staff as a barrier to achieving more cleanups.

In addition to this known workload, states most likely will continue to face a potentially large but unknown future cleanup workload for a number of other reasons.

Download the GAO report

 

Congressional Plan to Shield Polluters From Cleanup Costs Will Benefit A Handful of Texas Oil Refiners

WASHINGTON — Millions of consumers and their water utilities in 25 states will be forced to pay billions of dollars to remove a toxic, foul-smelling gasoline additive from drinking water under a plan to prohibit water pollution lawsuits against oil and chemical companies.

But the pollution liability waiver, which House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) and other lawmakers are pressing to include in pending energy legislation, will primarily benefit a handful of large oil refiners in just one state -- Texas -- where 75 percent of the pollutant, known as MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether), was produced last year.

The prospective winners and losers in the MTBE controversy, which is coming to a head this week in Congress, were presented in a new analysis made public today by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). The analysis is based on a computer review of water contamination data from the oil industry as well as state and federal sources.

"The liability waiver for MTBE polluters is the last big gusher for the Texas oil industry," said Ken Cook, president of EWG. "This is an industry that knowingly polluted the tap water of millions of Americans. Courts have been finding them liable. So they've gone to high-placed friends in Washington to rig the legal system in their favor—which will save them billions in cleanup costs."

Oil refiners are pressing Congress to prohibit any "defective product" lawsuits filed after Oct. 1 of this year because at least 1,500 communities have already reported MTBE contamination problems, and internal company documents are coming back to haunt the industry in court. EWG has posted internal oil industry documents and court testimony on its website (www.ewg.org) that refute pervasive oil company claims that they were "forced" by EPA air pollution rules to add MTBE to gasoline, and that MTBE producers were unaware of the chemical's extreme propensity to contaminate water supplies.

EWG listed 25 states with the greatest number of water sources that have been polluted by MTBE, which can render water undrinkable at concentrations as low as two parts per billion. The additive is classified as a possible human carcinogen. The listing was based on an analysis of water system contamination data and obtained from the U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors pollution in rivers, lakes, streams and groundwater.

Oil companies have pressured Midwestern legislators — some of whose states have MTBE contamination - to support the MTBE liability waiver in exchange for a new mandate to use corn-based ethanol as a fuel additive.

"A number of Midwestern states already have serious MTBE contamination problems. There's every reason to pursue expansion of ethanol use while still holding MTBE producers liable for the pollution they caused in the Midwest," Cook said. "And, it is doubly unfair to force dozens of states to pay the higher cost of gasoline with ethanol, and also force them to pay for MTBE cleanup instead of Texas oil refiners."

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Winners

Texas oil refineries that produced MTBE in 2002.

MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) PRODUCER	CAPACITY*
Amerada Hess, Port Reading, N.J.	1,700
Belvieu Environmental Fuels, Mont Belvieu, Tex.	14,800
BP, Carson, Calif., Whiting, Ind.; Yorktown, Va.	6,200
ChevronTexaco, El Segundo, Calif.; Pascagoula, Miss.; Richmond, Calif.	6,000
CITGO, Corpus Christi, Tex. (two units); Lake Charles, La.	6,950
Coastal Chem, Cheyenne, Wyo.	4,000
Conoco, Lake Charles, La.; Ponca City, Okla.	2,900
ConocoPhilips, Sweeny, Tex.	3,000
Crown Central Petroleum, Pasadena, Tex.	2,000
EGP Fuels, La. Porte, Tex.	15,000
Equistar Chemicals, Channelview, Tex. (two units); Chocolate Bayou, Tex.	16,300
Exxon, Baton Rouge, La.; Baytown; Tex., Beaumont, Tex.	23,300
Global Octanes, Deer Park, Tex.	12,500
HOVENSA, St. Croix, V.I.	2,400
Huntsman Chemical, Port Neches, Tex. (two units)	27,200
Koch, Corpus Christi, Tex.	1,800
Lyondell, Houston, Tex.	4,000
Lyondell-CITGO Refining, Channelview, Tex.	30,000
Marathon Ashland, Catlettsburgh, Ky.; Detroit, Mich.; Robinson, Ill.	5,740
Motiva, Convent, La.; Delaware City, Del.	4,800
Shell, Deer Park, Tex.; Norco, La.	11,000
Sunoco, Marcus Hook, Penn.	2,500
Tesoro Petroleum, Martinez, Calif.	2,500
Texas Petrochemicals, Houston, Tex.	24,000
Valero Energy, Benicia, Calif.; Corpus Christi, Tex.; Dumas, Tex.; Houston Tex.; Krotz Springs, La.; Texas City, Tex.	28,600
Total	259,190

Source: Data from The Innovation Group and published in the Chemical Market Reporter. http://www.the-innovation-group.com/ChemProfiles/MTBE.htm

Losers

States where more than 10,000 consumers are served by public water systems reporting MTBE contamination. (Served populations do not include systems with abandoned water wells or consumers getting water from private wells.)

In 25 states, MTBE contaminates water systems serving more than 10,000 people.

	Population served by MTBE-contaminated water system(s)	Rank
California	30,989,000	1
Massachusetts	2,212,000	2
New Jersey	2,120,000	3
Pennsylvania	978,000	4
Texas	919,000	5
Florida	629,000	6
Arkansas	486,000	7
New York	455,000	8
New Hampshire	390,000	9
Alabama	282,000	10
Wisconsin	229,000	11
Illinois	218,000	12
Maryland	195,000	13
Indiana	192,000	14
Rhode Island	84,000	15
Nevada	83,000	16
Delaware	78,000	17
Michigan	66,000	18
South Carolina	60,000	19
Maine	57,000	20
New Mexico	39,000	21
Alaska	36,000	22
Minnesota	17,000	23
Missouri	17,000	24
Nebraska	11,000	25

Source: Environmental Working Group. Compiled from state government drinking water contamination data.