DAYTON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and six companies are launching an investigation into possible threats to the city's drinking water supply and residents who use private wells north and downhill of the Brandt Pike Oil Pipeline and Distribution facility, 621 Brandt Pike, the federal agency announced Thursday.

No contamination has been detected in the city's drinking water supply, the EPA and the city said.

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Donna Winchester, environmental manager for the city's water department, said Dayton has been working with the terminal since the late 1980s to monitor pollution.

"Now they are doing a very intense, very in-depth investigation," she said. "From the investigation results, it will be determined whether they will have to take remedial action."

The city is particularly interested in how far pollution might have spread, Winchester noted. Some residents near the facility live in Riverside and some in the Old North Dayton neighborhood, Winchester said.

The EPA said the site has been in operation since the 1930s and 40s and includes four active petroleum products distribution facilities that receive petroleum from a pipeline. Tanker trucks and other pipelines then redistribute the petroleum from above-ground tanks. Each facility stores 8 million to 12 million gallons of oil.

The companies working with EPA include BP Products North America Inc., BP Oil Company, Buckeye Terminals, LLC., Inland Corporation, CITGO Petroleum Corporation and Sunoco, Inc.

There have been spills at the site, the EPA said, and beneath the facilities is the groundwater aquifer that provides water for Dayton's well fields. The city installed two monitoring wells north of the site as part of its well field protection plan in January 2006.

Sampling of the monitoring wells has detected levels of methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) in excess of 85 parts per billion and benzene in excess of 164 parts per billion, indicating groundwater containing oil, MTBE and benzene is moving in the direction of a residential neighborhood to the north and in the direction of the Great Miami River and the city well field.

On April 30, Dayton reported that MTBE was detected for the first time in a groundwater monitoring well at a level of 0.280 parts per billion. EPA said the pollution "may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment."

The companies must submit a work plan within three months, said Randa Bishlawi, assistant regional counsel, U.S. EPA. The public in invited to comment on the project for 30 days, she noted.

Those who want more information and want to comment should check: www.epa.gov/region5/sites/brandtpike or call (312) 886-0269.