That's the point Axy! If ethanol were NOT in the fuel water would NOT be attracted to it.
I am afraid that water is present also in gasoline, and ON PURPOSE.
Gasoline is corrosive agent, in my country it is classified as corrosive agent Class 1. According to ISO standard regulating this area, this means that it corrodes copper material after 3 hours of exposure at temperature of 50 C.
Small addition of water to gasoline AND ethanol creates natural film of oxidation on the surface of aluminum alloy materials used in engines. This natural film then protects the material from further degradation and corrosive influence of gasoline and, to a smaller extent, OH- ions from ethanol.
Of course, there is a clear delimiter between desired volume of water in gasoline and undesired one. I do not have that information at hand.
I have been following articles in newspapers dealing with gasoline quality tests in my country. Gasoline exiting rafineries is produced according to the highest specs. The problem occurs during transport and storage. Small gas stations are saving money on tank cleaning and drainage processing and have lower turnover of gasoline. They often deal with smaller transport companies that provide service at lower cost but also save on cleaning truck tanks. The end result is dirt and water in gasoline, not in dramatic quantities, but significant and measurable. I would say the same logic applies to ethanol infused fuels and would be willing to bet that much bigger problem for those who use them is fuel quality control and sourcing than 10 % ethanol fuel by itself.
Also, I remind once again, we have 5 % ethanol fuel here (all fuels) and nobody every mentions ethanol as a source of issues. In fact, if you asked any driver do they know that gasoline contains ethanol AT ALL, the answer would be negative. This is simply not a topic here, it is a "non-issue".
