COMPANY TO DEBUT ADDITIVE; OFFICIALS TO DRINK LIQUID GOLD.

Byline: Krystn Shrieve Staff Writer

A Moorpark company is planning today to unveil a nontoxic gasoline additive it says provides the emission reductions and fuel efficiency without the environmental concerns of the controversial additive MTBE.

To show off the product's safety, officials at Omstar Environmental Products International plan to drink the gold-colored liquid they say decreases air-polluting fuel emissions and increases fuel economy and could become an alternative to methyl terciary butyl ether - MTBE.

``I could make every city and state in the nation compliant today with air standards set forth by the EPA,'' said Omstar owner Robert Cassar. ``It's so simple and it's so cheap.''

Omstar 1280X, which has been on the drawing board for more than a decade, is made up of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon, officials said. It's combined with other ingredients which give it the consistency of gold-colored liquid soap.

Cassar said one ounce of what he calls liquid gold added to 10 gallons of gasoline lowers emission by 20 percent to 50 percent and increases fuel economy by 4.5 percent.

The California Air Resources Board did two tests on the substance between 1989 and 1991 and found that, ``Testing has confirmed a statistically significant reduction in HC (hydrocarbon) emissions due to the use of D-1280X. Because diesels are a minor source of HC emissions, further evaluation of this effect is not warranted.''

Company officials said it has been tested in California, as well as in Italy and Costa Rica, and more tests are also being done now with Omstar and PEMEX, the fourth largest oil company in the world.

Environmental Protection Agency spokesman Randy Wittrop would not comment on Omstar 1280X but said the agency is exploring possible solutions to the side effects of MTBE.

That gasoline additive has posed environmental concerns because when gasoline leaked from storage tanks to groundwater the MTBE became difficult to remove. MTBE has been blamed for water pollution and the thinning of the ozone layer, officials said.

``Thirty years ago when there were no emission controls on cars the emissions coming out of tailpipes were unburned fuel. One thing we can do to help cars burn more cleanly is to help them burn more fuel, and MTBE did that,'' Wittrop said.

``However, MTBE is more water soluable than other components of gasoline and when gasoline leaked out of storage tanks and into groundwater the MTBE was difficult to remove, unlike other components that don't mix with water.''

Cassar said his company's goal is to add Omstar 1280X to gasoline at the refinery level.

To prove that the substance is nontoxic, Cassar and other officials involved with Omstar 1280X plan to drink it, said Omstar spokesman Brad Sales.

``For years they've been rubbing it in their hair and on their hands to show it isn't toxic,'' said Sales.

Diesel trucks that discharge large black clouds which fail to dissipate are typically considered to be running at 90 percent opacity and those that don't look as though they are emitting any clouds are usually running at 15 percent opacity, said Enrique Vilmorin, president of Omstar International of Mexico.

Vilmorin is in the middle of testing fleets of diesel trucks that cross the border between the United States and Mexico and said Omstar 1280 X was added to the gasoline tanks of 25 vehicles that did not meet government compliance for emissions.

``All 25 of them, we brought them into compliance,'' Vilmorin said. ``It lowered the smoke in the first 400 or 500 miles by half, and lowered the other half within another 1,000 miles. It's hard to say this will bring emissions down to nothing, that's an impossibility, but within 1,500 miles it will be running as pretty close to that as it can be.''