Half of California gas stations could be forced to close for failing to install new nozzles
California gas station operators have known since 2000 that they would have to install new nozzles on their gas pumps by tomorrow. And yet, at least 2,000 of the 3,900 stations in the Southern California region and 60 percent of stations statewide have failed to do exactly that. The California Air Resources Board ruled nine years ago that gas pumps would have to be equipped with enhanced vapor recovery nozzles that capture and recirculate the gasoline vapors that inevitably escape while pumping gas. Unfortunately, the narrow margins of gas retailing and high cost of the nozzles has made stations owners reluctant to spend the money. The equipment costs roughly $11,000 per pump. Starting April 1, stations that haven't upgraded will start to face fines that will be ramped toward the end of this year. Stations that haven't made the changes by the end of 2009 will be closed.
[Source: Los Angeles Daily News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Epyx 1:52PM (3/31/2009)
Those better be some hefty fines to make any difference.
Say I own 8 pumps that is $88K dollars worth of fines before it becomes a better idea to have installed the fume sucking device.
11K per pump! Wow, no wonder folks are not complying to the law. That is a hefty upgrade.
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why not the LS2LS7? 2:37PM (3/31/2009)
$88K for an 8-pump station. And they had 9 years to save up $88K. This doesn't seem like a huge cost. The cost of replacing all underground metal tanks with double-wall fiberglass over the last 10 years was probably much higher.
Tim 4:14PM (3/31/2009)
Epyx (#7)
You’re correct and I apologize. Even I sometimes fall in the dogma trap. We have been so bombarded with programming since birth, it’s sometimes difficult to fight the Matrix.
In post #6, strike the line “Good knows they will be judged later” and replace it with “Good just wants to live and let live… peace!”
Then add the paragraph: “Good is like a rubber band, it will stretch a long way, but when it breaks will often strike back… hard. Good will always seek to return to its natural position… FREE.”
blake 3:24PM (4/01/2009)
Most stations are in highly populated areas and fall within one of California's 42 Enterprise Zones. Generally 20% or more of stations will fall into a state or federal zone.
Stations in these zones are eligible for an income tax credit equal to the sales tax paid on these nozzles since they will fall with the definition of "pollution control" equipment (see CA Rev. & Tax. Code Section 23612.2). Therefore, many station owners can reduce their after-tax cost of retro-fitting these stations by 8% to 10% - depending on their sales tax rate.
In addition, stations in any of these state or federal Empowerment/ Renewal Zones can also secure hiring credits from $13,000 to $1,500/ per year/ per employee for up to 4 years back.
More info is available at http://www.hcvt.com/ez/aspx or http://www.blakechristian.com
Bill 7:23PM (4/09/2009)
The Socialist Republic of California strikes again. Good luck getting to work guys.The AQMD say's it isn't responsible for the gas station owners procrastination.... hmmm... then why did you give them the time?
Doesn't matter, at least you won't be breathing in a couple of seconds worth of vapor that auto mechanics breathe all day long (primarily because you won't have any gas stations).
The incompetent government strikes again!
jharlan 2:10PM (3/31/2009)
All part of the plan to cram the masses into mass transit! There is nothing about this requirement that makes much sense. More small businesses bite the dust in service to CARB. We'll have to drive further to get to a gas station. They (CARB) either have no common sense or this is sinister. The people are being brain washed and shoved into cattle cars. Why do we continue to elect these people making these knee jerk decisions with no concern for unintended consequences? We have the government we deserve! It's just discouraging.
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Tim 2:32PM (3/31/2009)
Only the elite rich and well connected will be able to afford to drive. The rest will walk or take the bus. Elitist don’t want the rest of us to have what they think makes them “elite”.
Statist elitists love separating us into classes and then pitting the classes against each other so we are too busy fighting each other to pay attention when they pick our pockets and take our freedoms. It could be race, ethnicity, age, sex, orientation, financial or whatever. It doesn’t matter as long as they can pit us against each other so they can divide and conquer. Some things (like human nature) never change.
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Nick 2:39PM (3/31/2009)
Tim:
Are you on crack? That's exactly how crack addicts behave, completely paranoid, seeing conspiracies at every corner.
So in your opinion the world is divided into the 'evil, cigar smoking elite' and the 'poor average joe the plumber' kind of guy? And the evil cigar smoking stalinist elitist (lol) wants to divide you based on "sex, age, financial or whatever" so they can "conquer" ?
Man, seek treatment, that stuff is bad for you!
Tim 3:26PM (3/31/2009)
Nick,
No, you don't understand Good vs. evil:
Good does NOT want the power to judge or be judged. Good knows they will be judged later. Good wants to be left alone. Good wants to leave others alone.
Evil (Statists "elite") wants the power of judgment. Evil wants to "help" others even when they don't want to be "helped" because it wants control. Evil thinks that it is good because it "helps" others. It thinks it’s smarter and thus has the right to control others “for their own good”.
Evil thinking that it is good is the most destructive lie of all.
Those evil Statists who wish to “help” control us for our own good are pure evil no matter the “party affiliation”! This fascism must be dealt with to preserve good liberty.
CARB is an elitist, statist and fascist organization.
Unlike you, I can explain my logic without resorting to childish insults.
Hurray for me! (snicker, snicker)
Epyx 3:58PM (3/31/2009)
Please don't ruin your Objectivist logic with "Good knows they will be judged later."
dhofmann 6:23PM (3/31/2009)
The rich have for decades been forcing the poor to pay for the elite to drive. Consider the concept of "free" parking. A 1994 study found that a parking space at UCLA costs $124 per month ($181 in 2008 dollars) in amortization and maintenance. Who pays for it? Ultimately anyone who shops at a store with those "free" parking spaces. That includes people who walk to the store because they don't own cars. Essentially, the poor are subsidizing those parking spaces for the middle class and rich. "Free" parking is regressive.
Consider how we use sales taxes to pay for freeways in place of user fees (tolls). Again, it results in taking money from the poor and giving it to the middle and upper classes. The rich try to argue against tolls by saying that they will unfairly impact the poor, but that is false: "As as a group low-income residents, on average, pay more out-of-pocket with sales taxes [than with tolls]." http://preview.tinyurl.com/7s3kak As a result, "Support [for HOT lanes] is high across all income groups, with the lowest income group expressing stronger support than the highest income group (80% vs. 70%)." http://preview.tinyurl.com/9whrnc
So if only the rich will be able to afford to drive, they had better pay the full cost of their lifestyles instead of taking from the poor as they do today.
Chris M 10:01PM (4/01/2009)
dhofmann, the taxes to pay for freeways comes from fuel taxes paid exclusively by those who own and drive vehicles, therefore the freeway users do pay the costs.
But public transit is heavily subsidized, with most of the cost of operation being paid for by sales taxes, and the ones paying the most sales taxes are the ones buying the most expensive items, in other words, the rich. Since a majority of those who use public transit are poor and cannot afford a car and a majority of those who subsidize public transit are rich and don't use it, doesn't that mean the rich are subsidizing the poor?
I don't really begrudge helping the poor, and public transit is, on the whole, a good thing. I just wish there was a better public transit system, one that everyone would like to use, one that wouldn't need big subsidies, one like PRT:
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/prtquick.htm
Nick 2:35PM (3/31/2009)
With 4 gas stations at the corner of every intersection, this is welcome news. The upgrades save money in the long run as well, since less gasoline is wasted.
California is once again leading the nation, other states will follow later, usually with a 10 year gap.
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Tim 3:35PM (3/31/2009)
Chris M,
Nick (like many nutcase liberals) resorts to hurling insults because he lacks the ability to clearly defend his arguments. Of course he is entitled to his opinions (as are we all), but Nick seems to believe that insults give his opinions more weight. He's probably around 12 or 13 years old, so I would take his comments with a grain of salt. Opinions vary and to disagree is fine, but most adults would use reason and not verbal harassment to present their case.
Epyx 4:25PM (3/31/2009)
"The upgrades save money in the long run as well, since less gasoline is wasted."
If this were true would it not behoove the station to do it on their own making a Gov. mandate unneeded?
Carney 7:35AM (4/03/2009)
"With 4 gas stations at the corner of every intersection, this is welcome news."
That sounds like gloating that gas stations will be forced to close because in your opinion there are too many of them. Lots of families without breadwinners at a time when it's very tough to find other work. Yay!
Of course, if there really were too many stations, they would be closing on their own due to a lack of enough customers, without needing draconian over-regulation to kill them.
"The upgrades save money in the long run as well, since less gasoline is wasted."
If that were true, the stations would be able to get loans to pay for these upgrades with the greater profit margins from less waste.
"California is once again leading the nation, other states will follow later, usually with a 10 year gap."
Straight into the Third World.
Noz 12:57PM (4/02/2009)
Tim:
You're a nutcase conservative.
Chris M 2:56PM (3/31/2009)
The odd thing is that all California stations have had vapor recovery nozzles for decades, now, and there was no squawk back then because the amount of gasoline that was saved by vapor capture quickly paid for the cost.
Oh, but this is ENHANCED vapor recovery! A rather trivial improvement in vapor recovery for a huge cost, even with gas prices soaring it can't really pay for itself. Methinks this is a scheme to boost the profit of companies selling this overpriced equipment, reduce the number of gas stations thus reducing both supply and competition, making more profit for the few mega-stations that survive.
I've already seen several small gas stations go out of business recently, this will only accelerate the trend. The irony is that with fewer stations, some people will have to travel farther to fill up, thus more gas used and more pollution produced.
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Nick 3:11PM (3/31/2009)
"The odd thing is that all California stations have had vapor recovery nozzles for decades"
REALLY? You just made that up to make you seem smarter didn't you? I'm in Cali, and I don't know where the hell you've been but tons of gas stations don't have any recovery nozzles at all. Only modern gas stations do (and not all of them) while older ones don't !
Americans drag their feet on technology because it 'takes away their freedom' and then complain that their products are falling behind foreign competition.
Apogee 3:33PM (3/31/2009)
Nick,
There may be no organized conspiracy, but you are definitely one of the people Tim is talking about. As ChrisM suggests, could there be a link between the new equipment and the political pressure to implement this 'improved' system? Who do you suppose will be able to foot the bill for this new gear?
From this article:http://www.pe.com/localnews/sbcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_S_gasfumes30.38b3f6b.html
'Lawrence said the rules add to the demise of independent gasoline sellers, who are being replaced by corporate chains such as Costco and Arco.
"You just don't see the mom-and-pop stations anymore," he said.'
California already has gas recovery nozzles, and has since the 1970's.
From this 2006 article: http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/news/reports/watchdog/20060730-9999-1n30vapor.html
"At the corner of Broadway and North Mollison in El Cajon, the Exxon gas station is like hundreds of others in the county – with one exception. Since 2000, the local air district's inspectors have issued 11 citations to the station, making it one of the region's most frequent offenders of vapor recovery laws.
Owner Gil Moore at New West Petroleum in Sacramento is steamed about the way the county air district has treated him and his 29 stations in the county. New West has been the subject of a county lawsuit over air violations and it has been billed for nearly $455,000 in penalties since 2000, district records show.
Moore operates stations in four California air districts. He rates San Diego's as the worst for being overly aggressive about minor violations.
Ultimately, Moore said, the fines drive up his cost of business, which is passed on to customers."
So the big oil companies are able to eliminate competition with the help of the taxpayer who will cover the costs with increased prices.
Besides, many of these devices that I've used are defective in nature, and will shut off prematurely regardless of whether a seal is made or not. If there is no actual screw tight connection, then you will have leaks.
I'm all for electric cars, and look forward to the day when ICE cars are as rare as the Ford Pinto, but if big oil and government collude to take away your choices, do you realistically believe that that collusion or ones like it will have no effects on the nascent EV industry?