Currently all of the methods that have been found to clean up MTBE spills have been when it is contained under static conditions. A site called Bioremedy details techniques used to clean up spills from underground tanks or gas spills at a gas station. The system that Bioremedy has developed is called Biobarrior. Biobarrior is essentially a concept of adding oxygen to the MTBE in the ground to keep it from leaking into the ground or water.

Bioremedy discusses projects at two locations showing how different situations can be treated with the same technique. To get to each of these sites first go to  Bioremedy and then click on documentation. The first site is called Demonstration Of The Bioremedy Process For MTBE Remediation At Retail Gas Stations. This site shows an underground gas tank that has started to leak plumes of MTBE and the way Spinnler chooses to fix it is using the Biobarrior method. The Biobarrior consists of microbs that degrade MTBE, an oxygen source, and a monitoring well system.

Image used courtesy of Bioremedy

Microbes are injected into the MTBE plumes (glossary). The Microbes (MC) are used to help degrade the MTBE plumes. The reason MTBE is put into gasoline is for changing the CO into CO2. The ozygen does the same thing to the MTBE when it is under the ground.

The second situation that used a Biobarrior was called MTBE Biobarrior Demonstration at Port Hueneme. This project took place at the Naval Facilities Engineering Command in Port Hueneme. They have researched an MTBE spill that occured over 15 years ago. They found that the plume left behind has not moved what-so-ever. They speculate the reason for this is the   20-50 foot thick layer of clay that is udner the MTBE plume. They separated the MTBE plume area into 32 plots and separated those plots into oxygen injection only and oxygen and MC-100. After a few weeks they checked the amount of MTBE and found that it had been reduced drastically in both types of plots, however the oxygen only plots took 169-261 days to decrease from 2mg/L > 9mg/L to 0.01mg/L > 0.1 mg/L while the oxygen and MC-100 plots took only 39 days to decrease to that level and by the 261st day had decreased to <.001mg/L. The Naval Command facility is currently doing a project started in Feburary of 2000 and will come out with all the data in two years.

Image used courtesy of Bioremedy