PLAINVIEW, N.Y., May 21 — When Paul Granger, the water district superintendent here, came to work one morning in 2000, he spotted a rig test-drilling for pollution at a gasoline station across the road from two wells that pump up to 1.7 million gallons of drinking water a day.

He expressed concern that pollution might be threatening the water supply, and eventually his district sued three filling stations, affiliated with Exxon, Shell and Gulf.

As the trial in that case opened in Garden City on Monday, the nation’s water supply industry and major oil companies were watching closely.

The outcome of the case could set a national precedent on who will pay the estimated tens of billions of dollars to clean up contamination caused by MTBE, a potentially carcinogenic fuel additive, now widely banned, that seeped into the ground as gasoline leaked from fuel storage tanks across the country.

When several major oil companies agreed earlier this month to pay nearly $424 million to settle a federal lawsuit brought by scores of water providers claiming damages from the gasoline additive M.T.B.E., one Long Island provider took the largest share by far.

The Suffolk County Water Authority in Oakdale, which supplies water to more than 1.1 million customers in the county, walked away with $73.4 million of the settlement. That figure was by far the highest among the Long Island providers and the other more than 150 water companies from 17 states.

Correction Appended

THE water that fills the drinking glasses and bathtubs of Long Islanders comes from right beneath their feet. Thousands of public and private water wells wick groundwater from aquifers, the sole source of drinking water for 2.7 million people.

But a new study shows that they could be getting more than just water.

A four-year federally financed survey of 52 gas stations across Long Island found 32 of them to have previously unidentified petroleum spills that could threaten the Island’s aquifers.

Drinking water found contaminated with Freon 12;
problem not linked to toxic leaks at MGP site

State health officials and consultants at a public meeting last week were quick to note that two public drinking water wells a stone's throw from a highly toxic utility gas-plant site in Hempstead are not contaminated with waste from the plant's toxins. Even under the worst of circumstances, contamination won't reach the 500-foot-plus deep wells for 16 to 175 years, they said.

Sen. Charles Schumer chose Elizabeth DelBuono's yard in Smithtown to dramatize his campaign to hold oil companies accountable for the cleanup costs of fuel spills that contaminated groundwater with the gasoline additive MTBE.

A graphic providing a history and explanation of Methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE).

PAUL GRANGER, the superintendent of the Plainview Water District, had to shout over the sound of a 150-horsepower pump as it sucked 995 gallons of water a minute up from a layer of sandy soil 400 feet underground.

"A lot of people don't realize that their water comes out of the ground right underneath them," Mr. Granger said, standing inside the small brick building that houses the pump on the front lawn of the district's headquarters on Manetto Hill Road. That underground water supply, or aquifer, supplies the drinking water for nearly three million people living on Long Island.

Monroe County is one of the "hot spots" on a new list of toxic spill sites across the New York. The list was released today by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY).

"These toxic sites pose threats to the groundwater that runs to commercial and residential homes," says Schumer, "and there may be more spills that we are not aware of."

The spills are MTBE leaks. MTBE or "methyl-tertiary-butyl-ether" is added to gasoline to make it burn more efficiently in cars and cut down on the amount of toxic emissions in our environment. The fuel additive became

A provision in the federal energy bill passed by the House of Representatives last week could tack $260 onto the average Long Island water bill.

The add-on would pay for the cleanup of a carcinogenic gasoline additive, MTBE, that for decades has been leaking into the ground, posing a growing threat to the island's drinking-water supply.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) vowed yesterday to filibuster the bill in the Senate - unless the provision, which protects oil companies from having to foot the bill for the cleanup, is removed.

Data showing Long Island has 30 more MTBE contamination sites than previously disclosed was cited by U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer yesterday as he built his case against the Republican energy bill.

Schumer, appearing at the Plainview Water District with state and local water officials, asserted that the proposed bill would protect oil companies from lawsuits and could cost typical Long Island homeowners $260 a year for cleanup.