| Santa Monica, CA Sues Big Oil for MTBE Damage to Water
Reuters
[SANTA MONICA, Calif.] The California beach city of Santa Monica said Tuesday it is suing 18 oil companies for damages that could exceed $200 million, charging the firms polluted city drinking water wells with a possibly cancer-causing gasoline additive.
The companies being sued include Royal Dutch/Shell Oil Co. , Texaco Inc., Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., Tosco Corp., Ultramar Diamond Shamrock and Unocal Corp..
Santa Monica city officials are asking oil companies to pay clean-up and litigation costs. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has estimated removing gasoline additive MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, could cost $200 million.
MTBE, a key component of California's clean-burning gasoline blend, fell out of favor recently when a study found it contaminated water supplies and could cause cancer. California Gov. Gray Davis ordered it banned as of 2002.
Santa Monica Mayor Ken Genser said that for decades the city had provided drinking water from its own wells.
"Now thanks to the oil industry, the city no longer can use most of its drinking water," he said in a statement. "The time has come for the oil industry to pay for the clean-up of its pollution and for the city to regain use of its most precious natural resource--drinking water."
Tosco and the joint venture between Shell and Texaco declined to comment, saying they had not yet read the lawsuit. Chevron spokesman Rod Spackman said that his company had worked with Santa Monica officials and were still researching clean-up alternatives and processes.
"Chevron believes we can work with the city," he said. "We're dealing with difficult problems and don't necessarily view this as our responsibility but are willing to be part of the solution."
The city, which borders Los Angeles, said oil companies walked away from negotiating a clean-up plan earlier this year, after MTBE was found to have seeped into city drinking wells.
City officials said the oil companies' attempts to rectify the contamination have been insufficient. "Poisoning someone's cow and then handing them only a glass of milk adds insult to injury," City Attorney Marsha Moutrie said.
The lawsuit says the defendants, "knew or reasonably should have known that (MTBE) would reach groundwater, pollute public water supplies, render the City's drinking water unusable and unsafe and threaten public health."
California gasoline refiners are required to use an oxygenate to produce the state-mandated CARB blend, the world's cleanest gasoline. MTBE was the oxygenate the industry adopted and has used since the 1970s.
The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco County Superior Court.
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