Mtbe Gasoline Additive

City officials have shut down a well after it was discovered to contain trace amounts of the potentially cancer-causing gasoline additive MTBE. The well, located near the Old Hot Springs Dance Hall on Paseo Adelanto, does not contain harmful levels of the contaminant and was closed as a proactive measure, officials said. Leaks into the city's groundwater supply began years ago after spills at two Chevron gas stations. The level of contaminant found in the dance hall well is 1.3 micrograms per liter.

Chevron, BP and other major oil companies have agreed to pay $423 million to settle more than 500 lawsuits brought by water suppliers and users in California and 19 other states over groundwater contaminated with the gasoline additive MTBE. In California, 11 plaintiffs would receive more than $78 million plus possible reimbursement for future treatment of nearly 1,100 wells, attorneys said.

An initiative proposed for the November ballot would curb the abilities of plaintiffs to collect punitive damages in many product-liability cases. Supporters of the state measure, which include oil giant Chevron Corp. and the business-funded Civil Justice Assn. of California have launched a signature-gathering campaign to put the issue before voters.

In a bid to remove the chief stumbling block to long-debated energy legislation, House Republicans on Friday proposed creating a multibillion-dollar fund to pay for cleaning water supplies fouled by a gasoline additive. The cost would be shared by the oil industry and federal and state governments.

Congressional negotiators said Sunday they had resolved a dispute over a controversial gasoline additive that had threatened passage of the first overhaul of national energy policy in more than a decade. They said they did not expect the energy bill to include any legal protection for the manufacturers of methyl tertiary-butyl ether, or MTBE, which helps engines produce less smog but has been blamed for contaminating groundwater supplies across the country.

Environmentalists and state officials scored a major victory Tuesday when Methanex Corp. of Canada announced it had lost its $970-million trade case challenging California's 1999 ban of the controversial gasoline additive MTBE. The case was viewed as a crucial test of state governments' ability to enforce health and environmental regulations that might conflict with international trade pacts. It was the first time a foreign firm had used the North American Free Trade Agreement to challenge a U.

The House on Tuesday passed a pair of energy bills and was expected to approve three more today in what Republican lawmakers said was a strategy to revive President Bush's overhaul of the nation's energy policy. But Senate Democrats accused the House GOP leadership of playing politics by refusing to strip from the overall legislation -- which stalled in the Senate last year -- a provision that would shield the manufacturers of a controversial fuel additive from environmental lawsuits.

ChevronTexaco Corp. said Wednesday that its California stations would begin phasing out the environmentally harmful gasoline additive known as MTBE this weekend, joining a growing list of stations that will offer MTBE-free fuel statewide this year. The San Ramon-based company is the state's second- largest gasoline retailer and the last of California's major suppliers to announce its plans for phasing out MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether.

Kern County prosecutors are suing ChevronTexaco Corp. for allegedly dumping water contaminated with the gasoline additive MTBE into an oil field. The district attorney's office, which filed the lawsuit Tuesday, is seeking $4.7 million in penalties. The lawsuit alleges that the company engaged in unfair business practices when it disposed of more than 4 million gallons of MTBE-tainted water. The water was trucked in from Cambria from November 2000 to April 2002.

The Orange County Water District has filed suit against a group of major oil companies, seeking money to investigate and monitor the gasoline additive MTBE and stop it from seeping into underground drinking water supplies.