ABSTRACT

Approximately half of the U.S. domestic water supply comes from groundwater. The remaining half is provided by lakes, rivers, and reservoirs. Until this point, the national water supply has been of a very high caliber owing to the existence of plentiful, high quality resources and effective pollution prevention efforts by state and federal agencies. Ensuring the quality of this resource has been the goal of federal, state, and local regulators. The introduction of MTBE into the national water supply represents a significant threat to that quality because of MTBE’s persistence in the environment and because of the potential for MTBE to accumulate in the nation’s aquifers.