Opening statements began Tuesday morning in Merced County Superior Court in the lawsuit the city of Merced brought against Chevron USA Inc., Shell Oil Co., ExxonMobil Corp. and other oil companies.
The city claims that the oil companies contaminated groundwater at several sites with methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), a fuel additive that's a possible carcinogen.
Lawyers for the companies mounted a spirited defense, insisting that they'd done nothing wrong by including MTBE in their gasoline. They claim there was no evidence of harm to anybody's health in Merced from the alleged contamination.
Duane Miller — from Miller, Axline and Sawyer, the law firm representing the city — explained to Judge Carol Ash and the jury how experts were asked to test as low a level of MTBE as they could to see if there were going to be any problems with the additive.
In court documents, the city claimed that the defendants — Chevron, Shell, ExxonMobil and others — sold gasoline containing MTBE or tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA) to Merced gasoline stations. (TBA is present in some gasoline; it's a gasoline constituent, an impurity in commercial grade MTBE and a degradation or breakdown product of MTBE, according to documents.)
The documents claim that the gas stations released the chemicals into the environment. The chemicals are claimed to have contaminated groundwater, Merced's public water supply, underneath the city in some places.
According to court documents, the alleged contamination began when the defendants supplied their branded gasoline containing the potential carcinogens to Merced gas stations from 1992 to at least 2002, resulting in releases to the subsurface, which contaminated the city's water system.
Miller explained to the jury how a plume starts at a gas station and spreads out in a teardrop formation as it moves. "The concentration tends to go down as it moves but the amount stays the same," he said, adding MTBE at low levels was detected in several wells. City officials then looked for the source of the suspected contamination.
Miller pointed to several stations on R Street. Two of them, he said, had more than four feet of gas floating on top of groundwater; "More than 75,000 gallons released."
Miller noted that city officials began learning how lower levels of MTBE can cause cancer. He said MTBE can cause a "really rare form of cancer, brain cancer. We are in the uncomfortable position where we had water with low levels of MTBE in the drinking water; now we have to deal with uncertainty."
MTBE can make water supplies undrinkable by changing water into a foul-smelling liquid with a turpentine odor and chemical taste, the court documents charged.
Miller said a study was conducted on MTBE in which people were able to detect an odor in the bottles of water containing the chemical. He charged the defendants with being less than responsible about their products. "And (they) failed to prevent it over decades. They had plenty of opportunities to address these problems and they didn't do it," Miller said.
The court documents claim the defendants promoted the use of gasoline containing MTBE or TBA by claiming that it was environmentally beneficial and would improve air quality.
The documents allege the defendants concealed or failed to disclose that MTBE would contaminate groundwater and render it unfit to drink.
Documents also said that the oil companies were negligent, careless, reckless or intentionally failed to prevent leaks of MTBE or TBA through the use of appropriate technology, installation and maintenance of gasoline delivery systems that could prevent leaks or monitor and discover them as soon as possible.
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