MTBE
in SLO
County’s
Water
and What
We Can Do
About It...

by
Jill Denton

 

In the beach city of Santa Monica, CA, residents haven’t been able to drink the water for over four years. Craig Perkins, City Director of Public Works, discovered that 70% of its wells were contaminated with MTBE from leaking gasoline storage tanks and accidental spills at gas stations.

Many Southern California "refugees" have moved to the Central Coast to escape just such environmental dangers. But the problems have followed them. Early this year high concentrations of MTBE were discovered contaminating the groundwater of Cambria, where local wells are utilized during the dry months. In Morro Bay, the gasoline additive has been found seeping into ground water that could reach the wells at Lila Keiser Park, one of the city’s three main water sources. In Los Osos, an MTBE plume has been discovered leaking north toward wells that supply drinking water for this small coastal town.

Methyl Tert Butyl Ether (MTBE) is the second most frequently detected volatile organic chemical in groundwater from coast to coast. In 1991, EPA approved MTBE as an air-cleaning gas additive to combat high smog and carbon monoxide in dense urban areas like the Los Angeles basin, where Santa Monica sits. Today this suspected chemical carcinogen has been found by the U.S. Geological Survey in more than a quarter of the nation’s urban wells and in streams, lakes, rain and snow, even in relatively remote rural areas like San Luis Obispo.

Sheila Soderberg of the San Luis Obispo Water Quality Control Board (WCQB) is worried. As agency MTBE specialist she’s currently monitoring numerous spill and leakage sites across the county. She ruefully confirms that Cambria, Morro Bay and Los Osos are three of her "highest priority cases" right now, while County Youth Authority in Paso Robles also ranks near the top of the clean-up priority list. Are there any county areas at all where residents are not effected by possible MTBE contamination? "Just one that I can think of... Soda Lake!"

Today MTBE is one of the most widely produced chemicals in the U.S., used by most oil companies to make reformulated gasoline burn cleaner and thus reduce air pollution. The Association of California Water Agencies reports that California now uses gasoline with very high levels of the toxic chemical. "Even if MTBE were banned today, years would be required to remove it from the state’s water, and the cost could run into billions of dollars." Craig Perkins states, "This is not some isolated, esoteric chemical contaminant. MTBE, which smells like turpentine or paint thinner, moves through the groundwater very quickly. It’s not something you want to drink."

He continues, "One study showed it caused cancer in laboratory animals. No one knew anything about the human health effects of injecting MTBE in drinking water. In one reservoir in Santa Monica, which holds 5 million gallons of water, just one cupful of MTBE would make the water undrinkable. That’s about the same amount contained in one gallon of gasoline." At this year’s Pacific Focus Groundwater Conference in San Francisco members of the Cambria Community Service District (CCSD) learned more about MTBE. "It’s very water soluble and migrates (percolates) through clay," says general manager Ken Topping. So traditional cleanup tactics don’t work to remove MTBE from groundwater. CCSD director Peter Chaldecott also notes that the remediation tactics presented at the Groundwater conference were not economically feasible for a small community like Cambria.

In Morro Bay MTBE has spilled from the Shell gas station located at Main Street and Atascadero Road. Sheila Soderberg is concerned that Equiva, the corporate face of Shell Oil, may not be working fast enough to define the boundaries of the MTBE spill that’s already been detected in ground water. "We’re taking (water) samples between our site and their wells," says Cameron Smyth, a spokesman for Equiva. Soderberg says, "They’re under pressure. The wells should turn on in November (to supply secondary backup water for the small beach town)."

WQCB confirms that Los Osos Chevron station has had two documented spills, "one between 20 and 50 gallons from a tanker truck." Hano Burns, the owner of the station, has contracted with SECOR to test the plume that is moving north under Los Osos Valley Road toward Los Olivos Well #3.

Unfortunately Los Osos depends entirely on municipal water drawn from groundwater wells situated throughout the town. Los Osos Community Service District Director Bruce Buel is concerned. At this point Los Osos wells measure "undetect" on MTBE. But Buel is well aware of potential dangers. "It takes only a tiny amount to shut down a well entirely."

Environmental engineers, government regulators and oil industry scientists have been predicting (for years) that MTBE would get into groundwater. Victor Sher, an attorney representing South Lake Tahoe, where MTBE was discovered in the groundwater, states, "the problem is that MTBE doesn’t break down and it is going to take years and years and enormous cost to make the water drinkable." Studies conducted by Chevron found that MTBE has contaminated groundwater at 80% of the 400 company test sites.

In response to such alarming news, many people now purchase bottled water in stores or stand at vending machines filling containers. Others pay to have bottles delivered to their home or office. U.S. bottled (and vended) water consumption has skyrocketed – nearly tripling in a decade, and millions are willing to pay 240 to over 1,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than they do for tap – although they probably rarely think of it that way.

Recently the Natural Resources Defense Council (www.nrdc.org/find) commissioned a groundbreaking study that comprised the most comprehensive independent testing of bottled water in the country. NRDC hired three different labs to sample more than 1,000 bottles of 103 brands of water. The results, released in March 1999, revealed that about a third of the bottled waters violated state or industry standards for excess bacterial or chemical levels of volatile or other synthetic organic compounds.

"We couldn’t believe it," said Richard Maas, research director of one of the labs, the Environmental Quality Institute at the University of North Carolina in Asheville. "There were high levels of arsenic in some of the bottled waters!" One chemist told Maas that many of the brands seemed to be ordinary tap water. "They contained trihalomethanes (THM’s), products of the chemicals (like chlorine) used to treat drinking water."

This is not surprising because as much as 40% of bottled water and ALL vending machine water is taken from public water systems – tap water, essentially. Sometimes this water is bottled or vended after additional treatment (such as carbon filtration or ozonation) and sometimes it is bottled with little or no additional treatment.

Bottled water marketing can be misleading. For example, one brand of water discussed in this report was sold as "spring water" and its label showed a lake and mountains in the background. But until recently this water actually came from a contaminated well in an industrial facility’s parking lot, near a toxic waste dump. According to USDA records another brand of water stating it was "pure glacier water" actually came from a municipal tap water supply.

While the FDA recently adopted rules intended to curb such practices, the rules include many loopholes and there are very few resources to enforce them. So consumers can’t assume that bottled water is any better than tap water. What about vending machines?

Los Angeles County health officials recently studied drinking water from vending machines such as those commonly found outside supermarkets. 93% of the machines studied had bacterial levels up to163 times as high as in domestic tap water! 62% contained minerals exceeding the state limit. 38% were failing to remove organic compounds such as THM’s which in high levels have been linked to increases in miscarriages.

"It amounts to consumer fraud when you’re selling what purports to be one thing and it’s actually another," said Cam Currier, an aide to L.A. County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, "the problem here is that they’re not cleaning or changing the filter often enough in these machines." "Glacier Water" vending machines sit directly across the street from the Los Osos Chevron MTBE spill. Each machine has an area where cleaners can sign and date, "This machine was cleaned and serviced___".

At present there are no signatures, and no dates. The promotional blurb emblazoned on the front of the machine shouts, "you bottle it fresh at the source!" The source of what?

NRDC concludes that "the long-term solution to drinking water problems is to fix tap water – not to drink bottled water." More and more consumers care about environmental concerns; bottling water and transporting those bottles around the country consumes far more energy and other resources than using tap water. The manufacture of plastics can pollute the air and ultimately many plastic bottles will end up in overflowing landfills or in the ocean, potentially harming the earth even more.

And what about cost? NRDC reports that the average cost of bottled water in California has been reported to be 90 cents per gallon, "though that appears to be a low estimate compared to most of our purchases..." Vending machine water costs less, but the time and effort filling, carrying, and storing cumbersome and heavy bottles is costly in itself.

NRDC recommends that consumers save time, money and energy by treating their tap water with advanced home filters that are certified by NSF International (an independent testing organization). As a result these people will have an unlimited supply of clean, fresh, safe water at their fingertips. The market today is flooded with hundreds of companies selling water treatment products through retail hardware stores from TrueValue to K-Mart.

Marty Cantu, manager of Los Osos True Value, has been selling and installing such filters for many years. He confirms that most of these units improve only the water’s taste and odor (aesthetics). True Value offers Brita (mostly pour-through) and Culligan filters. Brita (model 0B01/0B03) reduces particulate matter (like sand) and lead from drinking water, while Culligan (SuperGard THM) takes out some trihalomethanes. Neither brand reduces volatile organic chemicals like MTBE or other contaminants of health concern.

There are other ways to "fix" or filter tap water. Distillation removes all minerals, including those like calcium and magnesium which are beneficial to good health, by using a process of boiling water and recondensing the water vapor. Many chemicals are also vaporized and recondensed so distillation does not remove them all (for example, it does not reduce MTBE).

Reverse osmosis is popular in rural areas due to the perceived need for nitrate reduction in home drinking water. Expensive to operate, reverse osmosis systems do not remove all bacteria or chemicals such as chlorine, THM’s, or MTBE. Much water is wasted (3-6 gallons) to make only one gallon of water. Reverse osmosis units do reduce nitrates, but like distillation they strip the water of crucial minerals that our bodies need.

Martin Fox, Ph.D. is an environmental researcher and nutritionist. In his book, Healthy Water For A Longer Life, he writes, "Distillers and reverse osmosis units provide soft, demineralized water without any protective minerals. The effects of any harmful substance in this softened water will be greatly amplified. We need to greatly reduce or eliminate harmful substances and still have beneficial minerals in our drinking water. In most cases, proper filtration systems will achieve this - demineralized water will not!"

The nationally recognized standards established for the drinking water treatment industry confirm that the most effective systems for the improvement of aesthetics AND genuine reduction of contaminants like MTBE are those which utilize solid carbon block filtering technology. Granulated carbon or charcoal filters such as those sold in retail stores simply won’t do the job. Water passes around the carbon instead of through it, trapping dirt, rust, sand, and silt and removing objectionable odors like chlorine, not chemicals like THM’s or MTBE..

So what’s a concerned water drinker to do? NSF International can help (www.nsf.org). An internationally recognized independent agency, NSF has fifty years experience in testing and certifying products that meet strict public health standards. NSF evaluates and certifies the performance of drinking water treatment units of all types, from Brita pour-through to distillation to reverse osmosis. Although the EPA has not yet regulated MTBE, NSF recently released its standards. Fortunately, MTBE can be almost completely removed by adsorption using solid block activated carbon, a technology offered by Multi-Pure Drinking Water Systems. These filters are available through several different independent distributors on the Central Coast.

Jill Denton is a Psychotherapist who drinks lots of clean water every day. She has been researching drinking water issues in the S.L.O. area since 1991, and is happy to provide info and answer questions.