Questions of Health Risk Cloud Use of Special Fuel : Environment: EPA faces a tough call on requiring winter-blend gasoline to reduce carbon monoxide. Some motorists, mostly in Alaska, complained of nausea and headaches, but study results have been inconclusive.

By MARLA CONE

Oct. 3, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES ENVIRONMENTAL WRITER

As metropolitan areas across the nation are switching to a special winter blend of gasoline, federal researchers are unable to agree whether the highly touted fuel poses a health threat to motorists--especially in Alaska.

For almost a year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has puzzled over why hundreds of Alaskans, and some other people scattered elsewhere, complained of headaches, nausea, dizziness and other minor health problems while refueling their cars with oxygenated gasoline when it was introduced last year. The complaints were so alarming in Alaska that its governor has refused to allow the fuel to be sold there this winter.

The gasoline is the cornerstone of a year-old national clean-air effort that has been widely lauded for reducing carbon monoxide, a dangerous gas in car exhaust. Each winter, 39 metropolitan areas that suffer excessive carbon monoxide pollution--including all of California, New York City, Baltimore, Seattle, Minneapolis and Philadelphia--must switch to the new gasoline.

Investigations into the safety of the gasoline, which contains a chemical called methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, have raised more questions about health risks than they have answered.

Two federal research agencies recently reported conflicting results, thrusting EPA Administrator Carol Browner into an uncomfortable role of either ignoring the uncertainties or overhauling an important, congressionally mandated clean-air program that affects 70 million people.

EPA’s Office of Research and Development and Yale University concluded that the gasoline “is unlikely to be a substantial acute health risk” after tests that exposed people to MTBE, according to an Aug. 19 draft of an EPA report not yet publicly released.

But epidemiologists for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found an apparent link between symptoms and MTBE after blood tests and surveys of some residents of Fairbanks, Alaska.

“EPA feels pretty comfortable that it is a safe, effective product. But different people looking at the same data are making different conclusions,” said Phil Millam, EPA’s regional air-quality chief for the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

Citing the uncertainties, Alaska Gov. Walter J. Hickel has requested an exemption from the oxygenated gas program. “It would be irresponsible to mandate the use of this fuel until the people of Alaska can be assured there is no serious increased health risk,” he said in a letter to Browner a month ago.

Now, the EPA, which has been silent on the controversy, is under pressure to clarify its stance within a month; most areas will switch fuels on Nov. 1.

In California, service stations began early, pumping the winter blend as of Friday. State air-quality officials say they have no qualms because Californians reported no illnesses or health complaints when the new fuel was introduced last fall.

“We didn’t see the same problem here that they suspect in other places,” said state Air Resources Board spokesman Bill Sessa. “And even if (oxygenated gasoline) is a problem, the situation in California is far different than the rest of the country anyway.”

Unlike most states, California service stations have vapor-control nozzles that eliminate up to 95% of refueling fumes, and the state’s winter gasoline contains only one-third to one-half of the oxygenates found in fuels in other states.

“Exposures in other states are undoubtedly higher,” Sessa said, “but whether they are high enough to pose a health risk is up to EPA to decide.”

EPA officials say they are not seriously considering abandoning the program; they believe the health benefits outweigh the uncertainties. Oxygenated fuel has reduced the dangerous peaks of carbon monoxide, which occur largely in winter because of meteorological conditions, according to the agency’s data.

The EPA, however, now is wrestling with whether to suspend the program in Fairbanks and Anchorage. Browner faces the sticky task of either imposing sanctions on Alaska or granting a special waiver even when most of her advisers believe the health concerns are unfounded.

Many EPA air quality officials believe the complaints in Alaska were generated by a bizarre mix of mass hysteria fed by widespread media reports and a deep resentment of the federal fuel mandate. Many Alaskans, they say, were eager to complain about oxygenated gasoline because it raised pump prices by 14 cents per gallon there, far more than anyplace else in the nation.

“It’s a lot of hokum,” one EPA official said of the illness complaints. “Can I totally discount it? No. Is it mostly baloney? Yes.”

Others in the EPA and the CDC, however, say Alaska’s unusual arctic conditions may increase the amount of MTBE that people breathe. Most of the health complaints surfaced in Fairbanks, which has severe ice fogs and strong inversion layers that might concentrate fumes.

“To be honest, I have some concerns that price and press heightened the complaints in Alaska. But to be balanced, most of the testing we have done is at warmer temperatures, so there may be something to it in Fairbanks,” said one top air-quality official at EPA headquarters in Washington, who asked to remain unidentified because the agency has not yet taken an official stance.

In their tests, EPA researchers exposed 37 healthy adults to MTBE for one hour at room temperature. Afterward, all 37 had MTBE in their bloodstreams, but medical tests detected no respiratory inflammation, eye irritation, headaches, lightheadedness or other symptoms, according to the EPA’s report. Yale University repeated the tests on 43 others and also found no symptoms.

“Taken together, the EPA and Yale studies provide a consistent picture,” the researchers’ report says.

CDC researchers, however, tested 18 Fairbanks residents and found that the more MTBE in their blood, the more frequently they reported symptoms, especially headaches. Similar, although mixed, results were found when CDC tested 44 people in Stamford, Conn.

“In Fairbanks, we have concerns, because there are lots of people who told us about the problems they have been experiencing. But beyond that, we cannot generalize about other areas,” Dr. Ruth Etzel, team leader of the research, told The Times.

“Headache was by far the most predominant complaint,” she said. “Some also complained of dizziness and nausea. Some had sore throats.”

Etzel, who heads the CDC’s air pollution health branch, said blaming the complaints in Alaska on climate is just speculation because no one yet understands the possible risks.

“Until MTBE is fully evaluated in community-based studies, questions will remain as to its safety for widespread distribution and use,” Etzel said in a letter to Alaska’s environmental commissioner.

EPA officials, however, were angered by the letter. They call the CDC data questionable and say their own tests were more reliable because the subjects underwent health tests by experts, whereas the CDC relied on people’s subjective, self-reporting of symptoms.

On the other hand, the EPA and Yale research projects have their own shortcomings. The researchers note in their report that they only tested healthy adults and “this leaves the question open about more subtle health risks, especially among susceptible” people who are sensitive to chemicals. They also conducted all their tests in 75-degree temperatures, not arctic conditions.

Nationally, a multibillion-dollar investment by oil and chemical companies is at stake. Although other compounds can be used to add oxygen to fuel, they are more costly than MTBE and switching would force major, expensive changes in the plants that produce the winter fuel.

Jack Hinton, a Texaco Inc. manager who chairs an American Petroleum Institute committee on MTBE, said the industry was “quite surprised” by the rash of complaints from Alaska.

Studies of industrial workers exposed to much more MTBE than are motorists detected no similar health problems, Hinton said. Also, the chemical has been added to wintertime gasoline in Denver and Phoenix since the late 1980s, and although some initial complaints surfaced there, no widespread illnesses or symptoms were reported.

“Predominantly, people in the industry come down on the side that (oxygenated fuel) is safe. But there is still an arctic question that hasn’t been answered,” said Hinton, whose company is one of four that provides the fuel to Alaska. “We want to provide a safe, usable product to our motoring public, so we’re very interested in resolving this.”

Fuel Standards

Metropolitan areas that violate the health standard for carbon monoxide must switch to a special oxygenated gasoline during late fall and winter, when carbon monoxide pollution peaks. Most areas must comply with the federal law as of Nov. 1, although California began using the fuel Friday. Here is a list of the areas:

* Alaska: Anchorage, Fairbanks

* Arizona: Phoenix

* California: Statewide

* Colorado: Colorado Springs, Denver-Boulder, Ft. Collins-Loveland

* Connecticut: Hartford-New Britain-Middletown

* Maryland: Baltimore

* Massachusetts: Boston-Lawrence-Salem

* Minnesota: Minneapolis-St. Paul, Duluth

* Montana: Missoula

* Nevada: Las Vegas, Reno

* New Mexico: Albuquerque

* New Jersey/New York: New York City metropolitan area including northern New Jersey; Syracuse