As metropolitan areas across the nation are switching to a special winter blend of gasoline, federal researchers are unable to agree whether the highly touted fuel poses a health threat to motorists--especially in Alaska.
For almost a year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has puzzled over why hundreds of Alaskans, and some other people scattered elsewhere, complained of headaches, nausea, dizziness and other minor health problems while refueling their cars with oxygenated gasoline when it was introduced last year. The complaints were so alarming in Alaska that its governor has refused to allow the fuel to be sold there this winter.
The gasoline is the cornerstone of a year-old national clean-air effort that has been widely lauded for reducing carbon monoxide, a dangerous gas in car exhaust. Each winter, 39 metropolitan areas that suffer excessive carbon monoxide pollution--including all of California, New York City, Baltimore, Seattle, Minneapolis and Philadelphia--must switch to the new gasoline.
Investigations into the safety of the gasoline, which contains a chemical called methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, have raised more questions about health risks than they have answered.
Two federal research agencies recently reported conflicting results, thrusting EPA Administrator Carol Browner into an uncomfortable role of either ignoring the uncertainties or overhauling an important, congressionally mandated clean-air program that affects 70 million people.
EPA's Office of Research and Development and Yale University concluded that the gasoline "is unlikely to be a substantial acute health risk" after tests that exposed people to MTBE, according to an Aug. 19 draft of an EPA report not yet publicly released.
But epidemiologists for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found an apparent link between symptoms and MTBE after blood tests and surveys of some residents of Fairbanks, Alaska.
"EPA feels pretty comfortable that it is a safe, effective product. But different people looking at the same data are making different conclusions," said Phil Millam, EPA's regional air-quality chief for the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
Citing the uncertainties, Alaska Gov. Walter J. Hickel has requested an exemption from the oxygenated gas program. "It would be irresponsible to mandate the use of this fuel until the people of Alaska can be assured there is no serious increased health risk," he said in a letter to Browner a month ago.
Now, the EPA, which has been silent on the controversy, is under pressure to clarify its stance within a month; most areas will switch fuels on Nov. 1.
In California, service stations began early, pumping the winter blend as of Friday. State air-quality officials say they have no qualms because Californians reported no illnesses or health complaints when the new fuel was introduced last fall.
"We didn't see the same problem here that they suspect in other places," said state Air Resources Board spokesman Bill Sessa. "And even if (oxygenated gasoline) is a problem, the situation in California is far different than the rest of the country anyway."
Unlike most states, California service stations have vapor-control nozzles that eliminate up to 95% of refueling fumes, and the state's winter gasoline contains only one-third to one-half of the oxygenates found in fuels in other states.
"Exposures in other states are undoubtedly higher," Sessa said, "but whether they are high enough to pose a health risk is up to EPA to decide."
EPA officials say they are not seriously considering abandoning the program; they believe the health benefits outweigh the uncertainties. Oxygenated fuel has reduced the dangerous peaks of carbon monoxide, which occur largely in winter because of meteorological conditions, according to the agency's data.
The EPA, however, now is wrestling with whether to suspend the program in Fairbanks and Anchorage. Browner faces the sticky task of either imposing sanctions on Alaska or granting a special waiver even when most of her advisers believe the health concerns are unfounded.
Many EPA air quality officials believe the complaints in Alaska were generated by a bizarre mix of mass hysteria fed by widespread media reports and a deep resentment of the federal fuel mandate. Many Alaskans, they say, were eager to complain about oxygenated gasoline because it raised pump prices by 14 cents per gallon there, far more than anyplace else in the nation.
"It's a lot of hokum," one EPA official said of the illness complaints. "Can I totally discount it? No. Is it mostly baloney? Yes."
Others in the EPA and the CDC, however, say Alaska's unusual arctic conditions may increase the amount of MTBE that people breathe. Most of the health complaints surfaced in Fairbanks, which has severe ice fogs and strong inversion layers that might concentrate fumes.
