Epa Seeks To Cut Back Mtbe Use

Tue., March 21, 2000

From Staff

The Clinton administration has decided to phase out MTBE as a gasoline additive on grounds it poses a risk to public health or the environment, government sources said Monday.

MTBE, a leading oxygenate and octane booster, reduces emissions of smog, but in some places it has been linked to groundwater pollution. MTBE is used in one-third of the gasoline sold in the United States.

Montana is among the 16 states where MTBE is used. But it’s not used in North Idaho or Spokane County, where ethanol is added to gasoline to boost wintertime air quality.

Carol Browner, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was announcing Monday that her agency will seek to “significantly reduce or eliminate” use of MTBEs under the Toxic Substance Control Act. That law allows EPA to ban chemicals “deemed to pose an unreasonable risk to the public or the environment,” said a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The agency also will ask Congress for changes in the Clean Air Act that will encourage use of ethanol, an additive from corn, in place of MTBE, according to a congressional source. The 1990 law requires the use of oxygenates in gasoline.

The EPA previously has said it has no authority to regulate MTBE, and Congress should act to limit its use in light of evidence the additive is contaminating groundwater.

Refiners turned to MTBE after the Clean Air Act required that gasoline in areas with serious air pollution contain at least 2 percent oxygen by weight.

Last summer, an EPA advisory panel said that while current levels of MTBE in water pose no health risk, its use should be dramatically curtailed because of potential widespread water pollution problems. MTBE has been found to be a carcinogen and poses health and environmental risks, other critics of the additive have said.

The sources said the EPA action was a “backstop measure” because Congress had not acted to eliminate use of MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether.

Most gasoline used in Montana, except that used in Missoula County, contains MTBE, according to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

The agency has documented the presence of MTBE in soil and groundwater samples at many sites of fuel spills that are being cleaned up. Monitoring for MTBE is required only at spill sites, DEQ said.

At a Ronan gasoline station, a rusted plug in a fuel tank allowed up to 20,000 gallons of gas to leak near a creek.

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