Wednesday, April 15, 1998 | 10:11 a.m.
Both big oil companies and the public are urging Clark County officials to delay a plan to require cleaner gasoline year-round to cut air pollution.
The petroleum companies are worried about economics. It will cost customers an extra 6 cents per gallon with proposed additives. Companies delivering to Southern Nevada may also need to triple their fuel storage space.
Robert Hall, director of the Nevada Environmental Coalition, fears chemical additives in the cleaner gasoline pose a threat to human health and safety from air and water pollution.
The Clark County Health District has proposed bringing improved gas used in California to the Las Vegas Valley by 1999. However, that date is in doubt after a workshop on Tuesday at McCarran International Airport.
Another workshop has been scheduled for May 11. What proposal goes to the District Board of Health on April 23 is unclear. Health District officials had plans for the board to act on the fuel package in May after setting a hearing in April.
Although ozone pollution, responsible for brown smog clouds in summer, has not been a problem in Southern Nevada, officials fear summertime pollution as the population continues to grow. The Las Vegas Valley has serious winter air pollution problems created by carbon monoxide and dust. The highest source of carbon monoxide pollution is gasoline-burning cars.
California already has switched to a complex new gasoline formula for its 24 million cars in the Los Angeles area, said Michael Naylor, director of the Health District's Air Pollution Control Division.
By bringing in gas with a better burn, Southern Nevada can reduce all air pollutants, Naylor said.
Since the Environmental Protection Agency changed the yardstick to measure ozone, Las Vegas could violate the federal standard this summer, Naylor said, because of an annual 6 percent population growth rate.
By tackling pollution through cleaner fuel, the local air quality could improve in a year, he said.
Hall criticized the Health District for catering to developers at the expense of protecting public health.
"There is no political will to do anything that would slow development," Hall said.
Ingredients in reformulated gas, such as MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) threaten not only human lungs, but drinking water as well, he said.
Scientists have discovered MTBE in shallow groundwater in Las Vegas, but the chemical has yet to appear in Southern Nevada's drinking water. The federal EPA has set a guideline of 70 parts per billion in ground water for MTBE because early studies showed liver and kidney tumors in rats and mice.
"It's the DDT of the 90s," said Jack Greco, president of the Nevada Gasoline Retailers Association and a critic of the plan to broaden the fuels in Las Vegas.
One alternative to changing fuels twice a year came from Jim Sohns, president of the Southern Nevada Car Owners Association. Sohns, a Honolulu native, noted that most major cities keep traffic moving on one-way streets.
"Why not here?" he asked.
The Western States Petroleum Association has started a study on the severity of Las Vegas air pollution and alternatives to the use of oxygenated fuel.
WSPA, a coalition of seven petroleum companies, called the county's proposal "most ambitious."
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