Gasoline

A tanker truck overturned yesterday, spilling 500 gallons of gasoline and closing a Brooklyn street for more than six hours, city fire officials said. The accident occurred about 8:30 a.m. in the 1500 block of Frankfurst Ave. near the Harbor Tunnel, said city Fire Department spokesman Kevin Cartwright. Firefighters and workers from the city's Department of Public Works and the Maryland Department of the Environment contained the spill. Crews used salt, sand and an absorbent boom to soak up the gasoline.

A 39-year-old Milford Mill man was placed in a yearlong treatment program yesterday for dousing his wife with gasoline, then threatening to set fire to his house when Baltimore County police arrived.Ralph Louis Brown Jr., formerly of the 8800 block of Church Lane, pleaded guilty in April to one count of battery. He had also been charged with assaulting his wife, Lorretta, and threatening to commit arson.Circuit Judge Thomas J. Bollinger called Brown an angry and dangerous man, and said that in sentencing him he was "going way above the guidelines" of probation to two years.

Maryland gas prices have risen a penny a gallon since August and are up nearly 8 cents since July, according to AAA Mid-Atlantic.The trend breaks with a tradition of prices declining at the end of the summer travel season. The increases are due to a combination of strong demand in August and record low inventories, AAA said.Maryland motorists are paying an average of $1.268 per gallon for regular self-serve unleaded, up from $1.255 in August, according to an AAA survey of 30 stations in counties excluding Charles, Prince George's and Montgomery.

When war broke out last week, Ed Unitas was bracing for a long, cold winter at the gas pumps.The owner of Rosedale Texaco on Pulaski Highway, Unitas said he was convinced that gasoline prices would soar once the Persian Gulf battle began, forcing customers to cut back on consumption.But Unitas said yesterday that since the outbreak of war he's been able to reduce prices at the pump by an average of 8 cents a gallon, his largest reduction since the August invasion of Kuwait by Iraq.The result has been happier customers, although signs of hard times for the economy remain.

The hunt for the dangerous gasoline additive MTBE, which is contaminating wells in the Upper Crossroads area of Fallston, is expanding in geographical extent, in testing techniques and in sources suspected as a cause of the problem. Some residents of the area are not satisfied with the progress of the state testing program and have hired private contractors to examine their wells. When Darrin Ryan of Fallston had his well tested privately for methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, he was alarmed by the findings.

Maryland gasoline prices have surged 39 cents in a month - and this time you can't blame it on hurricanes. Instead, petroleum industry analysts point to a perfect storm of a different kind - the combination of global unrest, rising demand and shrinking gasoline inventories. The result has been the largest March-to-April run-up in gas prices in Maryland since 2002, when prices jumped 21 cents, the AAA auto club said yesterday. "It's hard to justify the gigantic jumps that we're seeing this year," said Amanda Knittle, a spokeswoman for AAA. "They defy explanation in consumer's minds, and in our minds."

A tanker truck hauling gasoline overturned and exploded last night as it entered Interstate 83 from the Beltway, killing the driver, forcing Riderwood residents from their homes and filling North Baltimore with smoke.The truck crashed about 8 p.m. as it entered the northbound ramp of I-83 from the eastbound Inner Loop lanes of Interstate 695 near the 8200 block of Jeffers Circle in Riderwood, Baltimore County fire officials said.The driver's name was not released; no one else was hurt in the accident.

Two teen-agers approached a Baltimore police officer patrolling the Eastern District last night, doused him with gasoline and unsuccessfully attempted to set him on fire, police said.Officer Erich Deiker, 30, who briefly chased his assailants before being overcome by the gasoline fumes, was taken to the Wilmer Eye Clinic at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was examined and released, police said.Officer Deiker, who has been on the force for four years, was sitting in his patrol car in the 1500 block of Biddle St. about 6:15 p.m. with the window down when a male teen-ager on a red mountain bike rode by and squirted gasoline into the car, said Officer Sabrina V. Tapp-Harper, a police spokeswoman.

WASHINGTON - For the second week in a row, the national price for gasoline hit a record high, giving U.S. drivers no relief at the pump. The average price of a gallon of gas rose a penny to $1.713, the Energy Department said yesterday. The latest fuel price, based on the Energy Information Administrations weekly survey of 800 service stations nationwide, is up 22 cents from a year ago. It marked the second consecutive week that a record fuel price was reached after breaking the old record of $1.68 a gallon set in June.

Police and fire officials evacuated about 15 homes in the Edgewater community of Anne Arundel County early today after someone apparently dumped gasoline that caused an explosion in a storm sewer line.Police said there were no reports of injuries or damage to homes.About 40 people living on Oak Bluff Road off Londowntowne Road were evacuated. They were expected to be allowed back in their homes by noon, authorities said.Other Oak Bluff Road residents were advised to stay indoors, said Capt.