Pumped Up and Falling Flat
At
the Expense of the Other
"The
best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley."
It's safe to say that two hundred years ago, Scottish
poet Robert Burns wasn't writing about twentieth-century
miscues in creating a better automobile fuel. However,
his idea that good ideas can turn out bad certainly
applies in the case of gasoline and gasoline additives.
From lead to MTBE and perhaps to ethanol, our best
efforts can seem short-sighted in retrospect. How
is it possible to pollute water with something created
to stop pollution in the air?
Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Clinton administration recommended that Congress ban methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) as a gasoline additive. Originally intended to clean up the nation's polluted air, communities across the country were starting to discover MTBE polluting their drinking water. Carol Browner of the EPA, in announcing the ban, said, "Americans deserve both clean air and clean water and never one at the expense of the other."
It seemed like a good idea at the time—add extra oxygen to gasoline to make it burn more cleanly and reduce air pollution. So, in 1990, the Clean Air Act required parts of the United States with particularly bad air pollution to start adding oxygenates to gasoline. Seventeen states or cities were required to comply with the act, but some other areas went along voluntarily as well. Within a few short years, MTBE became the fourth-highest produced organic chemical in the United States, just behind the chemicals that go into plastics.
There are many reasons why we don't want MTBE in our drinking water. For one thing, it can make water taste and smell bad. It doesn't break down very quickly, so once it is in a water supply, it can be there a long time. Finally, MTBE is a suspected carcinogen — a substance that can cause cancer.
If the MTBE is in gasoline, how does it get into the water supply? A person who overfills his gas tank at the service station can spill gasoline on the pavement, which then gets washed into the storm sewers. Gasoline might spill out of a damaged car following a car wreck. Or, in what is perhaps the biggest potential source of MTBE in the water, underground gasoline storage tanks at service stations might leak and release gasoline directly into the groundwater, where it can get pumped into drinking water wells.
- Listen
to these reports from All Things Considered
on the MTBE
controversy in California and Maine, and the
EPA
ban. (Requires RealPlayer.)
- Think
about where your community gets its drinking water.
Does it come from groundwater pumped from wells
or from surface water, such as a lake, reservoir,
or river? If you don't know the answer, visit
Surf
Your Watershed, where you can find not only
the source of your drinking water, but also details
on your local watershed, reports of contamination,
etc.
- Join
Dijit as he learns about water and fractions in
the Exploring
Proper and Improper Fractions activity of
Destination MATH's Mastering Skills and Concepts:
Course IV.
Another
Alternative Politics and Pollution
Even
an issue that seems non-partisan takes
on new meaning in a Presidential election
year. There are economic repercussions
to banning MTBE and promoting ethanol.
And things that affect voters' wallets
quickly become hot election issues.
By
banning MTBE, which is derived from petroleum,
the Democratic administration in Washington
has perhaps hurt Vice President Al Gore's
chances for winning oil-producing states,
Texas and Oklahoma, in November's general
election. But those are states Texas Governor
George W. Bush is likely to win anyway.
Banning MTBE and promoting ethanol, which
is derived from grain, could help Gore
in Corn Belt states like Illinois and
Iowa. On the other hand, transporting
ethanol to California could raise gas
prices there by as much as seven cents
per gallon at a time when gas prices nationwide
are already high. That wouldn't help Gore
win California. Whew!
With about one-third of drinking water wells in 31 states
currently contaminated with MTBE, it's obvious that the
problem was great enough for the EPA to act in banning
MTBE. However, what about the original problem with air
pollution? MTBE did seem to be helping reduce levels of
smog. Is there another way to add oxygen to gasoline?
The most likely alternative to MTBE is ethanol, a renewable fuel made primarily from corn. Adding ethanol to gasoline can have the same effect as adding MBTE. Unlike MTBE, ethanol breaks down rapidly and will not stay in the soil or water after an accidental spill. Ethanol is not a carcinogen and is actually present naturally in human blood in small amounts, so it might pose less of a health risk.
- Questions
and Answers on Ethanol is a good, quick review
of facts and issues surrounding the use of ethanol
as a fuel additive.
- The Renewable Fuels Association, which lobbies and advocates for the use of ethanol as a gasoline additive, was quick to tout ethanol as a replacement for MTBE.
Get
the Lead Out
Of course, MTBE wasn't the first time adding something
to gasoline turned out to be a bad idea. Lead was
originally added to gasoline starting in the 1920s
to help prevent automobile engine "knocking." But,
like MTBE, lead turned out to have serious harmful
effects on human health.
Lead is a neurotoxin — a poison to the nervous system. In adults, even low levels of lead can cause high blood pressure and heart disease. Children are affected to an even greater degree. Early exposure to even small amounts of lead can cause learning disabilities, reduced intelligence, hearing loss, and many other lifetime disabilities.
The lead in leaded gasoline gets burned and spewed out of car exhausts. Once in the atmosphere, it can be inhaled, particularly in urban areas where there is more of it in the air. Much of the lead eventually comes back to Earth, where it accumulates in the soil, the water, or in living things. Lead doesn't break down or disappear over time. It is estimated that most of the estimated 7 million tons of lead burned in gasoline in the United States in the last century is still in the environment.
- For an interesting take on how lead was first added to gasoline, read Jamie Lincoln Kitman's article, "The Secret History of Lead," from The Nation.
The good news is that taking lead out of gasoline is very effective at lowering lead in children's blood. Since banning the use of leaded gasoline nearly 25 years ago, the average American's blood lead level has dropped from a frightening 16 micrograms per deciliter to less than 3.
Leaded gasoline isn't just an American problem. Countries all over the world burned leaded gasoline; many still do. Last week, Jamaica joined the growing list of nations that have abandoned the use of leaded gasoline.
- This May 1996 press release from The World Bank is still an excellent summary of the lead problem and how it affects both developed and developing countries.
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