( MTBE is the gasoline additive many of us recognize on our gas pumps 'gasoline contains MTBE'. This additive was added to slow the rate at which gasoline burns inside of an internal combustion engine, making the actual combustion process transfer more energy to the piston, and subsequently make then engine more efficient. MTBE replaced a previous additive that slowed burning in engines, Lead, which we all know was quite bad. However, MTBE was pushed through on purely a political agenda without being adequately scientifically tested. This happens too often as many of our politicians have little or no scientific backgroud and the non-skeptical American public is all to willing to jump on the latest 'environmental' bandwagon. It turns out now, dozens of years later, that not only is MTBE carcinogenic, but it permeates throughout entire water tables. When other pollutants would settle to the bottom of a water table or float to the top, MTBE is completely absorbed within the water and spreads throughout the entire sample of water, so even a small amount that comes from a leaky gas container can contaminate a whole water table. Now California is trying to force the oil companies to pay for the damage of an additive which they not only resisted implementing, but were required to by federal law. - Mike)

Oil companies must pay for regulators' mistake
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Having strong-armed gasoline companies into adding MTBE to fuel in order to make it burn cleaner, officials in California want oil companies to pay to clean up sites contaminated by the additive now that it's proved toxic.

from - http://www.nandotimes.com/nation/story/68296p-971833c.html

Nation: Gasoline additive leak threatens California drinking water

California environmental data

The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (August 27, 2001 10:09 a.m. EDT) - The gasoline additive MTBE - which has been
linked to cancer - has leaked into 48 wells in public water systems serving hundreds of thousands of
people throughout the state, state records show.

The San Francisco Chronicle analyzed data from the Water Resources Control Board and the
Department of Health Services and found that leaks of the additive from nearly 1,200 underground tank
sites threaten the drinking water supply of millions of Californians.

The data do not include tens of thousands of private wells in California and hundreds of thousands
nationwide. Such water supplies are not regulated by public agencies and generally are not tested for
MTBE unless holding tanks buried nearby cause concern.

"The regulators should use the data that's being collected to identify the sites that pose the greatest
threat, those closest to drinking water wells," said Anne Happel, a member of the Environmental
Protection Agency's blue ribbon panel on MTBE.

MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, is added to gasoline to make it burn cleaner, but it has been
linked to cancer. Oil companies have until the end of 2002 to phase out its use.

State records show the 1,189 underground tank sites leaking MTBE are within 1,000 feet of public
supply wells or on vulnerable drinking water aquifers. An additional 1,729 leaking tank sites father away
from drinking water wells also could be a threat.

More than 2,500 public drinking water systems that serve 30.5 million - or 90 percent of the state's
population - have been sampled for the carcinogen. Of the 8,311 groundwater sources sampled, 48
contained MTBE.

Just last week, a judge in San Jose signed an agreement forcing five major oil companies to clean up
sites they own that have been contaminated MTBE.