Environmental threat prompts water conservation campaign at Tahoe

Officials blame the paradox of gearing up for water conservation at the end of a generous winter on a new environmental threat at Lake Tahoe: MTBE contamination.

"I'm looking out my window, and it's snowing like crazy. But it doesn't help our water supply," South Lake Tahoe Mayor Judy Brown told the Sacramento Bee.

The fuel additive has fouled wells and tainted lakes across the state, prompting Gov. Gray Davis last month to order its phaseout in California's gasoline by the end of 2002.

But no urban area has fared worse than Tahoe's south shore, which has lost nearly 20 percent of its drinking water supply to MTBE so far, with no end in sight to the pollution.

Local officials said the contamination of more than a dozen of their wells is mainly due to leaks of MTBE from fuel tanks below gas stations along Highway 50.

The South Tahoe Public Utility District, the south shore's primary water provider, depends solely on wells because it's forbidden to touch the lake's clear, blue waters.

The state's Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board has ordered gas stations to contain, pump and cleanse fuel-contaminated groundwater.

But district officials said the chore isn't proving easy because they have found MTBE plumes that travel up to 10 feet a day.

"Not one of our MTBE plumes is fully contained because everyone underdesigned their system," said Lisa Derbach, associate engineering geologist at the water board. "They just don't clean fast enough."

It's up to the "responsible party" to clean up the mess, but the process of identifying the source and starting the cleanup can take months, even years, said Robert Dodds, a water board supervisor.

"We wish we had a tool to get tank owners to respond more quickly than they do to MTBE leaks," Dodds told the Bee.

Anxious for quick action, the south shore utility is considering a plan that would allow it, not the state, to do the enforcement.

Rules requiring gas stations near wells to sink holes to constantly monitor the groundwater would allow early detection of leaks and save a lot of money, utility officials said.

The proposal is set for a public hearing in June.

In the meantime, the utility has applied for reimbursement from a new state MTBE-cleanup fund and launched a water-conservation campaign.

"Next week, I'm talking to every sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grader in south Tahoe about saving water and about MTBE," said Dawn Forsythe, a district spokeswoman.

District officials got a good response to their water-saving requests last summer, when only half as many wells had been lost to MTBE.

They hope to get by this year with the help of rules banning daytime irrigating and allowing restaurants to only serve water upon request.

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