Pollutant linked to Coast Guard

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Massachusetts
CAPE COD TIMES
Pollutant linked to Coast Guard
By Amanda Lehmert
February 2, 2004

BOURNE - Air Force cleanup crews discovered a fuel additive in the
groundwater that they believe may be coming from a nearby Coast Guard
gas station.

Air Force sampling of a well drilled near an abandoned school on the
southwestern corner of the Massachusetts Military Reservation detected
methyl tert-butyl ether, or MTBE, at levels as high as 1,430 parts per
billion.

The state's safe-drinking water standard is .07 parts per billion.

The state Department of Environmental Protection issued a notice of
responsibility to the Coast Guard in January. That gives the
organization one year to investigation the contamination and create a
cleanup plan.

The area is not used to draw drinking water, and the extent of the
contamination has not yet been determined.

"We need to find out where it is coming from, and if it is from a Coast
Guard activity, we are going to take care of it," said Bob Cannon, the
environmental health and safety manager at Air Station Cape Cod.

Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence crews drilled several
monitoring wells in 2003 to help them better define the extent of MTBE
contamination, which has been dubbed the Chemical Spill 23 plume.
Cleanup workers were looking for several different chemicals, but they
didn't expect to hit MTBE at 80 feet below ground level.

MTBE is a possible carcinogen. The Environmental Protection Agency
health advisory level is between 40 and 70 parts per billion.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/pollutantlinked2.htm

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