A Dirty Little Footnote to the Energy Bill

By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO

WOODBURY, Conn., April 12 - A freshly painted, six-foot-high steel tank is this rural town's hope for cleaning up a smelly gasoline additive that is fouling its water system. The additive, methyl tertiary butyl ether, has seeped into two of three wells that supply water for 2,000 residents.

In a few weeks, the carbon filtration system housed by the tank will begin treating the well water. The water company plans to expand treatment to a reserve well, 1,000 feet away, where the level of the chemical tested last September at more than twice the federal recommended limit. The filtration unit is expected to cost about $1 million the first year and $250,000 to operate each year afterward, said Rich Henning, a spokesman for United Water, a private company that supplies Woodbury and three other communities in Connecticut.