Service Station

A potentially cancer-causing chemical has cropped up intermittently for 13 years in the ground water around an Exxon service station in Harford County, which this month became the epicenter of one of the largest private well-contamination problems ever recorded in Maryland, a state official said yesterday. Routine testing by the Harford County Health Department of local businesses serving food first detected high levels of the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) at the Exxon in the Fallston area in October 1991, said Herbert M. Meade, chief of the oil-control program for the state Department of the Environment.

Mark Krug leases his Rosedale service station from Exxon, buys his gasoline from Exxon and pays the oil giant to use its gold-plated brand name. At his Petro stations in Timonium and Ellicott City, Krug owns the property, buys generic gasoline from whoever gives him the lowest price and hopes consumers don't much care about a tiger in their tank as much as they do about shaving the price of a fill-up. Stations such as Petro may lack the market power of a well-known - and highly marketed - brand, but they can usually beat the prices of stations that carry logos like Exxon, Shell and BP Amoco, and make more money doing it. And at a time when pump prices have risen sharply, that has meant a boost in business for unbranded dealers.

YESTERDAY I pulled into the BP service station just off the St. Paul Street exit of the Jones Falls Expressway. I gassed up, checked the air in the tires and I couldn't wait to get out of there. An onslaught was coming. Starting last night all of the southbound traffic, somewhere in the vicinity of 66,000 vehicles, that normally travels along a section of the JFX was being detoured. The weekend route, from the North Avenue exit of the JFX, down Mount Royal Avenue, snaking over to St. Paul Street, then back on the JFX at Eager Street - would steer traffic right past the gas station.

Testing of wells in a Harford County community has found a potentially cancer-causing chemical in the drinking water of at least 11 more homes and businesses, bringing to 28 the total so far affected by a suspected leak from a nearby Exxon service station. County, state and oil company officials, meanwhile, sought to assure anxious residents of the Upper Crossroads area that they were moving swiftly to identify the extent and source of the contamination - and to provide them with bottled or filtered water.

John Milton Morgan Jr., 81, service station owner John Milton Morgan Jr., a former service station owner who helped establish and served as president of the Maryland Independent Retail Service Stations Dealers' Association, died of bladder cancer Sunday at his home in Hanover, Pa. He was 81. Born and raised in Highlandtown, Mr. Morgan was a 1940 graduate of Patterson High School. During World War II, he enlisted in the Army Air Forces and was based in England with the 8th Air Force. He served as a bombardier and tail gunner aboard B-17 Flying Fortress bombers, completing 18 combat missions over Germany, France and Czechoslovakia.

WASHINGTON - On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, my neighbor was having his car inspected. He had brought along a book to read while he waited. There was no radio or television at the service station, and accordingly he had no idea what the news was that black Tuesday. He recalls vividly, however, that two women were conversing excitedly in Arabic and laughing. My friend could make out only the name Osama bin Laden. When his car was finished, he switched on the radio and learned that the World Trade Center was a fireball and the Pentagon had just experienced some sort of bomb.

Driving has always been a bit dangerous, but these days there is an added risk to taking to the road - fires at the fuel pump. Static electricity generated by customers at an increasing number of self-service gas stations nationwide has caused an estimated 138 fires and one death during the past decade. Experts say that although the numbers are small compared to the 12 billion fill-ups each year, they are hazards that can be avoided. "It's a problem almost no one is aware of, but everyone should be," says Stephen Fowler, an electrical engineer and safety consultant in Moore, S.C. Just ask Catherine Burkett.

Ernest Wilson Gill, the former owner of a Ruxton service station and an antique car collector whose vintage 1912 Packard roadster was a fixture on area roads and at the annual Towson Fourth of July Parade, died of an aneurysm Wednesday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. He was 87. Mr. Gill, who lived for many years on Ivy Hill Road in Cockeysville, was born and raised in Ruxton, the youngest of 10 brothers and sisters whose parents owned and operated Gill's Ice Co. By the time he was 11, he stood 6 feet tall and was driving and maintaining the business' single white Model-A Ford panel truck and hoisting on his shoulder 100-pound cakes of ice which he delivered to houses in Riderwood and Ruxton.

Tyrus Cleon Cobb, 68, service station owner Tyrus Cleon Cobb, a retired service station owner, died Tuesday of complications from a stroke at Mariner Health of Catonsville. He was 68 and lived in Elkridge. He owned and operated a Gulf service station in Elkridge at U.S. 1 and Levering Avenue for 25 years, retiring in 1989 for health reasons. Born in Baltimore and raised in the Arbutus-Elkridge area, he was a 1953 graduate of Howard High School in Ellicott City and Lincoln Technical Institute in Baltimore.

The international oil and solar power giant BP plans to invest $60 million in Baltimore in the next few years by opening 30 new or revamped service stations in the city and county. While opposition in Howard Park led the company to back off plans for a large station there, BP officials are meeting with community groups in and near Waverly, where they hope to construct a station on a city block at the neighborhood's commercial crossroads, 33rd Street and Greenmount Avenue. City officials, worried that the station model is too suburban, say they plan to watch the Waverly project as a barometer because they expect similar issues to surface in other communities BP approaches.