Plainview Water District Commissioner Edward Shulroff and Superintendent Paul Granger recently joined New York State Senator Charles E. Schumer at a press conference at the Plainview Water District Administration Building to oppose the "safe harbor" provision for MTBE makers included in the Energy Bill that passed the House last week and will soon be considered by the Senate. Over the past several years, MTBE has had a negative impact on water supply systems in other regions of the country, heightening the concerns of Long Island water purveyors.

The Plainview Water District strongly opposes provisions in the energy legislation that will provide product liability immunity (so called "safe harbor") to gasoline manufacturers for MTBE. The "safe harbor" for MTBE makers will leave communities and water districts around the country left to pay cleanup bills. If such product immunity is eventually enacted, gasoline manufacturers will have little incentive to clean up contaminated water supplies or assist in the development of alternative water sources. These costs are anticipated to be billions of dollars nationwide, and should be borne by the manufacturers of these products, not by water consumers. "Safe harbor" shifts liability for clean-up away from the manufacturers at fault to water consumers. It also shifts liability to retailers, who are in no way responsible for the decision to produce a product that has such capacity for environmental harm as MTBE, and who are unlikely to have the resources necessary to remedy the problems created by MTBE.

The Plainview Water District has the responsibility to provide drinking water to the 32,000 residents of the Plainview and Old Bethpage area. For the past several years, the Plainview Water District has led the battle to ban the use of MTBE in automotive gasoline that has finally come to pass in New York State in January 2004. MTBE is a gasoline additive, which is non-biodegradable, has a propensity to sink into the aquifer system and is soluble in water. MTBE is a documented threat to the sole-source of drinking water for 3.3 million Long Island residents in addition to water supply sources in all 62 New York counties. More than 130 public water supply wells in Nassau and Suffolk counties have been contaminated with MTBE. Nearly 100 additional public supply wells have been contaminated elsewhere in New York. The cost of re-mediating these problems is unprecedented and could exceed over $100 million on Long Island alone. Supply wells or reservoirs polluted with MTBE can require treatment systems costing millions of dollars in capital construction costs and tens of millions of dollars in long-term operation and maintenance costs. Cleaning up one gas station's MTBE problems can cost more than a million dollars.

"Residents can rest assured that my fellow commissioners and I are committed to protecting our precious drinking water supply," stated Commissioner Shulroff. "We have made tremendous strides over the past few years in convincing state and federal government officials to the negative impact MTBE can have on the environment. We will continue to aggressively monitor the quality of our water and take appropriate measures against all polluters.

Joining the Plainview Water District and Senator Schumer was Walter Hang, President of the Environmental Monitoring Firm Toxics Targeting, Dennis Kelleher, incoming Chairman of the New York State American Water Works Association, John Hirt, President of the Nassau/Suffolk Water Commissioners Association and Robert Murray, Chairman of the Long Island Water Conference.

The Board of Commissioners would like to thank the community for their continued support. Should residents have any other questions and concerns, please feel free to contact the Water District at 516-931-6469.