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Without more clarification this appears to be nonsense. Do any search for gasoline floats on water and every explanation says gasoline floats on water, not the

Without more clarification this appears to be nonsense. Do any search for gasoline floats on water and every explanation says gasoline floats on water, not the other way around. If there is any hope in this disaster it is that interstate pipelines transport raw gasoline (more or less a natural fraction of petroleum) without the additives. It is the additives like MTBE (now I believe outlawed) that create the most lasting ground pollution. Light petroleum fractions naturally migrate towards the surface, where they are either consumed by microbes that eat the light fractions (and leave the heaviest fractions) or they evaporate.

markbnj 6y ago
Agreed. The statement also caught my eye and the only thing I could find that seems even remotely relevant is http://www.earthdrx.org/specificgravitylesser.html http://www.earthdrx.org/specificgravitylesser.html. This is very specific to lighter fluids injected into a subsurface ground layer below a water layer, and theorizes as to why the lighter fluid may not percolate through the heavier fluid above.
fuzzfactor 6y ago
Actually the MTBE was simply more easily detected by smell if the groundwater had come from a source where underground retail storage tanks had leaked MTBE-oxygenated gasoline. The portion of the fuel which does not evaporate can sink with gravity until it rests upon a water table within range. The vast majority of the wells contaminated by leaking gasoline went largely undetected until MTBE was widely introduced to gasoline according to the Clean Air Act of 1990. When compromised retail tanks in use started to recieve gas containing MTBE, it still took a while to seep down into some people's water just like the plain gasoline had been doing, before they started to notice since the MTBE has a characteristic non-hydrocarbon smell of an ether. MTBE itself is far less toxic than the hydrocarbons it had replaced in the fuel. Technically, by experts not considered dangerous to health in the trace amounts found in the contaminated water, just bad taste. Physicians have treated patients using pure MTBE with therapeutic effect, with side-effects that would be expected also from the more traditional USP Ethyl Ether. https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/MTBE https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/MTBE The natural components of gasoline like the benzene are recognized as far worse but they are not so easy to taste.

markbnj 6y ago

Agreed. The statement also caught my eye and the only thing I could find that seems even remotely relevant is http://www.earthdrx.org/specificgravitylesser.html http://www.earthdrx.org/specificgravitylesser.html. This is very specific to lighter fluids injected into a subsurface ground layer below a water layer, and theorizes as to why the lighter fluid may not percolate through the heavier fluid above.

fuzzfactor 6y ago

Actually the MTBE was simply more easily detected by smell if the groundwater had come from a source where underground retail storage tanks had leaked MTBE-oxygenated gasoline. The portion of the fuel which does not evaporate can sink with gravity until it rests upon a water table within range. The vast majority of the wells contaminated by leaking gasoline went largely undetected until MTBE was widely introduced to gasoline according to the Clean Air Act of 1990. When compromised retail tanks in use started to recieve gas containing MTBE, it still took a while to seep down into some people's water just like the plain gasoline had been doing, before they started to notice since the MTBE has a characteristic non-hydrocarbon smell of an ether. MTBE itself is far less toxic than the hydrocarbons it had replaced in the fuel. Technically, by experts not considered dangerous to health in the trace amounts found in the contaminated water, just bad taste. Physicians have treated patients using pure MTBE with therapeutic effect, with side-effects that would be expected also from the more traditional USP Ethyl Ether. https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/MTBE https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/MTBE The natural components of gasoline like the benzene are recognized as far worse but they are not so easy to taste.