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http://www.star-telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:STATE64/1:STATE640318100.html Updated: Saturday, Mar. 18, 2000 at 02:59 CST

TNRCC: More aggressive treatment required By The Associated Press AUSTIN -- The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission will require a pipeline company to use more aggressive water treatment methods to speed up removal of a gasoline additive from East Caddo Creek, which leads to Lake Tawakoni. Tulsa, Okla.-based Explorer Pipeline Co. can select any method of stepped-up treatment, including carbon filtration or aeration, as long as 90 percent of the additive is removed from the water in the creek, the commission said in a news release issued Friday.

A 28-inch pipeline, which runs from the Texas Gulf Coast to Indiana, broke last week northeast of Floyd in western Hunt County. It spilled about 500,000 gallons of refined gasoline into nearby Caddo Creek, which runs into Lake Tawakoni.

The most recent results of tests on the water showed the lake had dropped to between 100 to 150 parts per billion of methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE. Earlier samples measured the gasoline additive as high as 271 parts per billion. The level is not serious enough to cause adverse health effects but enough to cause odor and taste problems, officials have said.

Winburn Milk in Sulphur Springs is using its tanker trucks to bring water to the residents of West Tawakoni, for whom Lake Tawakoni is their primary water source. Sulphur Springs is 28 miles northeast of West Tawakoni, which is 48 miles east of Dallas.

Distributed by The Associated Press (AP)

-- charlie (cml@workmail.com), March 18, 2000