(Source: Tampa Tribune)
By Neil Johnson, Tampa Tribune, Fla.
Nov. 5--TAMPA -- The region's water supplier has been offered a partial settlement for a 2007 lawsuit over a gasoline additive with the potential to pollute groundwater.
No methyl tertiary butyl ether has been found in wells of Tampa Bay Water, but the additive has been found in the aquifer in the general vicinity of public supply wells.
The regional utility joined existing lawsuits by other public water suppliers against gasoline companies in April 2007 in case the substance were to migrate through groundwater into one or more supply wells.
The Tampa Bay Water board will meet Friday to consider the $105,816 settlement offer from three of the 37 defendants in the federal lawsuit.
The case against the other 34 defendants would remain open.
The settlement offer, received in October, is from Marathon Oil, Flint Hills Resources and Crown Central LLP.
The synthetic chemical sometimes referred to as MTBE was added to gasoline to improve combustion and air quality. But the additive dissolves more easily in water than other chemicals in gasoline and moves more easily through underground water supplies.
Most of the chemical found in groundwater came from leaking storage tanks or pipes or from spills.
The substance was used in gasoline beginning in 1979 to replace lead, and amounts were increased in 1990 to make gasoline burn more cleanly.
Most gasoline manufacturers have stopped using the chemical.
More than 170 municipalities and local utilities from across the nation are participating in the lawsuit, which seeks more than $1 billion from oil companies. The suit claims that oil company executives were aware as early as 1980 that MTBE was a danger to water supplies.
Tampa Bay Water provides water to public utilities in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties and to Tampa, St. Petersburg and New Port Richey.
The board meets at 9 a.m. at 2575 Enterprise Road, Clearwater.
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