It was all about ethanol of course. MTBE is essentially safe. From a study on MTBE published at the Asia Clean Fuels Association:
If the use of MTBE is such an effective tool for improving fuel emissions as a low cost fuel component, then why are there calls for MTBE removal or reduction?
The history of clean fuels has, over the last few years, been predominantly linked with the use of oxygenates as part of vehicular emissions control, of which the major two components are MTBE and ethanol.
Both are effective tools. However, because constraints exist with the use of ethanol, not least in handling and transportation, among other factors, made MTBE use a more popular choice.
In 1998, it was found that MTBE contamination of underground water due to leaking storage tanks became a concern. However, instead of solving the problem of leaking fuel storage tanks, of which the US government had allocated a fund to rectify, MTBE was unfairly identified as the target component for removal.
Oil and Gas Journal recently published an article on MTBE (Volume 99, Issue 9, Feb 26, 2001) in which the health risks of MTBE were examined. This article discussed commonly discussed MTBE health questions into language understandable by the average person. An extract from this O&GJ report appears below:
"Former EPA Administrator Carol Browner created a special blue-ribbon panel in 1998 to investigate concerns about oxygenates in gasoline. This panel reported that 5-10% of communities in areas using MTBE in gasoline have found detectable amounts of MTBE in community drinking water. EPA's limit for MTBE in drinking water is 20-40 ppb. Only about 1% of these detections have shown levels of MTBE above 20 ppb.
In the US, the average person consumes about 1 quart/day of water (in addition to another 1.5 quarts ingested in foods and drinks) and lives about 75 years. A quart of water per day for 75 years means the average person drinks about 27,375 quarts of water in a lifetime. At 20 ppb, a person's lifetime consumption of MTBE would be 0.01752 oz. If this lifetime quantity of MTBE were added all at once to a dry martini, an informed college student would probably drink it on a dare and suffer no harm.”
http://www.acfa.org.sg/library.php?subcat1=Gasoline&subcat2=Ethers/MTBE&subcat3=
∆∆
| 
