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Who's Afraid Of MTBE? Page 2 of 5 The US EPA considers MTBE a possible human carcinogen, and it produces a disagreeable taste and odor at very low concentrations in drinking water Numerous reports and investigations over the past five years have identified widespread MTBE in groundwater and surface water across the country During the 1993-94 US Geological Survey's (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment program, MTBE was the second most frequently detected chemical in shallow groundwater from urban areas Of the 210 wells and springs sampled by the USGS, 27% contained MTBE It is not a leap, then, to see why corporate officers and directors fear the prospect of being targeted for potentially significant liability where the coiporation holds title to MTBE contaminated property The best way to control such liability is to use an innovative treatment technique that is designed to reduce the contaminant to acceptable regulatory levels, of eliminate it altogether, as quickly and cost- effectively as possible Treatment of MTBE Ozone has been used for many years in the treatment and removal of certain chemical contaminants in industrial wastewater Because of this long and reliable treatment history, its application to remediating certain forms of chemical contamination in a setting outside of industrial wastewater was a fairly easy transition It is not so surprising, then, that the use of ozone to clean up gasoline contaminated real estate has become a proven, leading- edge technology that is effective at destroying MTBE What is Ozone/How Does it Work? Ozone is a relatively unstable molecule comprised of three oxygen atoms This instability means that it has a short life-span, and degrades rapidly in the environment, which makes ozone ideal for environmental remediation of contaminants Ozone can be introduced to the subsurface as either a gas (ozone sparging) or a liquid (dissolved ozone injection) In gas phase, ozone is typically introduced to the subsurface (either alone or with air) through traditional air sparge wells In aqueous phase, ozone dissolved in water is typically injected to the subsurface through injection wells, trenches or infiltration galleries When ozone is dissolved in groundwater, the groundwater itself becomes a remediating agent Dissolved ozone directly destroys the MTBE by chemically reacting with it to break the compound down into carbon dioxide and water, which obviously present no threat to human health or the environment In addition, unreacted ozone will degrade to dissolved oxygen to enhance natural biodegradation of residual contaminants Case History The subject site is the location of an out-of-service, former, retail petroleum service station Environmental assessment activities at the site, following gasoline, underground storage tank removal activities revealed the presence of gasoline floating on the groundwater beneath the site, and high concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons in soil and groundwater Other hydrocarbons exceeding the State's cleanup standards included benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes (BTEX), and MTBE http //www mgkflaw com/articles/whosafraidofmtbe html 11/10/2004