To: marcos who wrote (14328 ) 2/2/2002 6:16:29 PM From: Raymond Duray Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 74559 marcos, Another stellar effort on your behalf. Thanks for your insightful views. MTBE - Methyl Tertiary Buytl Ether is an oxygenating agent that was brazenly and mistakenly forced on the refiners in California by the CARB - California Air Resources Board as a means of taming air pollution. What these solons failed to either comprehend, or more likely to merely acknowledge since the science was out there, that MTBE is quite hydrophilic. I.e. it mixes easily with water. Ground water, water in lakes, water in rivers. Water anywhere that there are water-craft running on two-cycle engines that dump half their fuel in the body of water they are run in. The boating industry points it's finger at the pin-hole problems of gas stations in order to confuse the issue. The real cause for concern about Lake Tahoe and every other body of water in California is an arrogant and cavalier bureaucratic decision to trade off California's water for the sake of the better financed lobbyists of the American Lung Association and their allied groups. One man's poison is another man's pill. Re: Methanex - I just sent this email to invest@methanex.com I'll let ya know if I get a reply. Somehow I doubt it. <g> Dear Sirs, I'd like to take a second to introduce myself. I'm an American citizen, living in Bend, Oregon. I became aware of your company via the U.S. public broadcasting system. On Friday Feb. 1, 2002, I watched a segment of Bill Moyer's "Now" that described how Methanex was attempting to use the secretive and anti-democratic mechanisms of NAFTA, specifically Chapter 11, in order to extort the State of California. This act is quite unseemly, and quite disturbing to me that a Canadian corporation can attempt to use an erstwhile "free trade" agreement to engage in what I can only describe as an utter lapse of good judgement on your part. I have reviewed your News Release, dated March 8, 2001: methanex.com I wish to point out to you that Mr. Choquette has engaged in sophistry of the most venal manner in describing the problem as one of underground storage tanks. As far as groundwater contamination is concerned, as you well know, the real problem is that MTBE is a hydrophilic compound that is spewed in vast quantity into the lakes, reservoirs and rivers of California by the incomplete combustion of fuel-oil mixes in the two cycle engines of water craft of many configurations. Mr. Choquette is being very disingenous. Shame on you. If you chose to respond to my understanding of the science of MTBE pollution, I would encourage you in no uncertain terms to provide the details of your claims that MTBE is not problematic to the environment. I have reviewed your brief and inconsequential statement of envionmental concern on your website and I find it utterly convincing, in view of your suit to continue to pollute California or get paid off. Very unseemly behavior for a corporation. And completely at odds with your stated goals of enviromental stewardship. Please let me know that you are not as obnoxious and evil as Mr. Moyers is portraying you. Renew my faith that NAFTA was passed to benefit all Canadians, Americans and Mexicans and not simply a band of rapacious, devious corporate hucksters. Furthermore, your attempts to subvert democracy are a serious concern to me, as they are to hundred of thousands if not millions of citizens of North America who see your subversion of the processes of self-governance to be extraoridinary power grabs by some of the most irresponsible among us. Thank you for your attention. Sincerely, Raymond G. Duray Bend, OR.