New Hampshire's Water Widely Contaminated with MtBE

A new study conducted by the US Geological Survey has found that the gasoline additive MTBE has contaminated drinking water supplies throughout the state much more widely than originally believed.

Oil companies added MTBE to gasoline supplies in order to reach clean air standards.

And in the more populated counties, Hillsboro, Merrimack, Rockingham and Strafford gasoline was required to contain the additive.

But in the 1990s the chemical was found to be contaminating water supplies in communities across the country, and New Hampshire phased it out as of last year.

The new Geological Survey report suggests that phase out may have been too late.

The study shows that MTBE has contaminated roughly 30 percent of the public drinking water supplies in the state's most populated counties and in 17 percent of the private wells tested in the same area.

And Fred McGarry, at the Department of Environmental Services, which commissioned the report, tells NHPR's Mark Bevis that some of the wells tested have contamination levels higher that state safety standards.