Health officials are working to make Carroll the first county in the state to institute a plan for responding to gas additive contamination in groundwater.
“Every few years, we?d have an [MTBE]spill or release, but now it seems like we are dealing with at least several a year,” said county water quality supervisor Brian Flynn on Monday.
Representatives from the county environmental health department will discuss the plan with the county?s Environmental Advisory Council on Wednesday.
Flynn, who crafted the strategy, said the county would be required to notify the state within 24 hours after a discovery of methyl tertiary butyl ether, a potential carcinogen.
Maryland environment officials have been working with gas stations throughout the state to replace gasoline that has MTBE with gas that has ethanol, a much safer additive, by July 1.
Flynn said that 10 years ago, he and his colleagues would sample 30 sites in Carroll for contaminants, compared with 230 this past year.
In addition to increased sampling, the county?s growth contributes to Carroll?s ranking first in the state for reports of MTBE contamination, said Herbert Meade, administrator for the state?s oil control program.
“The MTBE discoveries are occurring more frequently as sampling is performed, so this plan is a positive action,” he said Monday.
Developers are required to perform groundwater studies and, as a result, uncover more incidences of MTBE in drinking water, health and environmental officials say.
Alleviating water contamination is trickier in Carroll, which has limited drinking water sources, than other parts of the state, Meade said.
Unlike at the Eastern Shore or in Southern Maryland, where wells are dug deeper to tap uncontaminated water, Carroll?s ground is “fractured rock,” he said, a type of bedrock under the first layer of soil that is broken, allowing water to travel along the fissures.
The plan for address MTBE contamination was first presented to the Carroll County commissioners several weeks ago.
