In today’s Fairbanks Daily News-Miner is reprinted a Sacramento Bee article about how the City of Santa Monica now has to import water thanks to the efforts of environmental regulators to “clean the air” by adding MTBE—methyl teriary butyl ether—to California’s gasoline supply.
Apparently the additive, a government-classified “possible” carcinogen,
survives the combustion of the gasoline, enters the air, is washed from the atmosphere by rain or dew, and percolates into groundwater. <correction> Apparently the contamination was due to leaking storage tanks; I seem to recall though that at least some of the wells found contaminated were claimed not to have been near any such tanks. </correction> Santa Monica’s five city-owned wells are now abandoned as a result.
Here in Fairbanks, the federal EPA tried without success to force the use of MTBE in gasoline; resistance—aided by local elected officials—turned the effort back, but the EPA still wants additives put in our automotive fuels to “oxygenate” them and supposedly make them burn more cleanly. The feds have repeatedly threatened to cut off federal monies to the state if the Alaska Depatment of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) does not move to force oxygenation. Frankly, only the friendship of Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Jim Sampson (who was state labor commissioner during the 1986-90 term of Democratic Alaska Gov. Steve Cowper) with current Democratic Gov. “Phony Tony” Knowles (a widely acknowledged “Slick Willie” wannabe) seems to have held ADEC off from making such a move. So far. Where I live, the water table is very shallow, and just about everyone who doesn’t live in city limits has a private well.
The MTBE groundwater contamination is just one more example of the failure of government tinkering, due to the Law of Unintended Consequences. Big Gummint liberals—who loudly denounce the idea that the ends justify the means, no matter how beneficial—seem to embrace the idea that the intentions justify the outcome, no matter how detrimental.
In environment-obsessed Santa Monica, the city’s chief water chemist, Myriam Cardenas, told the Bee, “I try to keep abreast of ground water issues. I watch the journals. I pay attention. And I was caught unaware.“
Does your gas smell funny when you pump it? Does your water come from a well? If so, print out this article and send it to the head of your local water agency, and to your elected representatives, and demand that they stop the feds from forcing local and state governments to expose their citizens to water contaminated with a substance the EPA itself acknowledges may cause cancer.
