Officials trying to track water pollutant

By DAVID PEDREIRA

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 19, 2000

TAMPA -- County environmental regulators are visiting locations in Hillsborough contaminated with high levels of the gasoline additive MTBE, and plan to map out a strategy with state officials to track the substance as it pollutes water wells.

Last month, the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission learned of several MTBE pollution sites it didn't know about after a St. Petersburg Times article prompted a closer look at the gasoline additive, county officials said Tuesday.

A Times computer-assisted analysis of state records found more than 235 wells around Tampa Bay have been contaminated with sizable amounts of MTBE.

Hillsborough County led the way, with 96 tainted wells.

Nearly a third of those exceeded state Department of Health standards, forcing Florida to install filters or connect well owners to municipal water lines.

"We are certainly going to start working with the (state) Department of Environmental Protection and the health department to take a closer look at this," said Hooshang Boostani, director of EPC's waste management division.

Frustrated that she didn't know about the extent of MTBE pollution in the county, Hillsborough Commission Chairwoman Pat Frank asked last month for a report on the spread of MTBE and the threat it poses to the local water supply.

"We need to be aggressive in figuring out if there are any problems here," Frank said at an EPC meeting Tuesday. "If it takes 10 years to detect some of this stuff, we better be on our toes."

MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, is listed by the federal government as a possible carcinogen. It was developed by oil companies in the 1970s to replace lead in gasoline. MTBE is an oxygenate, meaning it adds oxygen to fuel and increases octane.

It also makes gasoline burn cleaner. When federal environmental regulators ordered the nation's smoggiest metropolitan areas to put oxygenates in their gasoline in 1990, MTBE became the additive of choice.

MTBE, however, mixes easily with water and spreads rapidly when it leaks from rusty underground storage tanks.

Public water supplies in several states have been tainted with the substance, forcing the Clinton administration to recommend banning it.

Paul Schipfer, assistant director of EPC's waste management division, said county staffers plan to meet with state officials this month to develop strategies to track and clean up MTBE pollution.

"We don't have anyone out there actually looking for MTBE right now," Schipfer said.

- David Pedreira can be reached at (813) 226-3463 or pedreira@sptimes.com.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.