Fed up with oxygenated gas

PROVO — Utah County Commissioner Jerry Grover knew oxygenated fuel had worn out its welcome the day an irate county resident tossed parts of a ruined snowblower on his desk.

Not that it's any big surprise. Utah County motorists have been chafing at the regulation mandating its use since its implementation in 1992.

And each year the public tolerance continues to diminish, especially since Utah County hasn't violated carbon-monoxide emissions limits since 1991.

"I hear every year from people," Grover said. "Gas station owners in the county feel they're losing business because people fill up outside the county if they can.

"Oxygenated fuel is hard on cars, particularly the older ones because it attacks the seals and the hoses, anything rubber. It cleans out the gas tank, which you would think is good, but it makes it so you have to change the fuel filters more often and sometimes it can cause clogging problems," Grover said.

It also causes major problems for small engines, hence the ruined snowblower that ended up on Grover's desk.

"The owner's manual says not to put oxygenated fuel in them. It burns too hot," Grover said. "It's a given. The little engines just can't handle it."

In the past, a few gas stations in the county have been designated each year to sell non-oxygenated fuel in five-gallon increments.

But not this year.

Laura Vernon, a spokeswoman for the Department of Environmental Quality, said there are no approved outlets in Utah County for regular gasoline.

"If it's defined as a gasoline in Utah County, it must be oxygenated," Vernon said. "Really, the skinny is you'll have to go to Salt Lake County (to get fuel for small engine machines)."

In the meantime, motorists are aggravated because every year for the past decade they've been promised the oxygenated fuel would go away.

Utah County Commissioner Gary Herbert said the county has done all it can and Grover made sure he was appointed to the State Air Quality Board so he can bring up the subject every meeting.

The ball lies in the state's court, Grover said. Air quality officials must prepare and propose a carbon monoxide maintenance plan that shows how the county will control CO levels for the next 20 years.

"They've promised they'll have a maintenance plan by January 2004," Grover said.

Once a plan is proposed, it must go to the public for hearings and to the EPA for final approval before July 1, 2004. If that date is not met, fuel suppliers will not be able to order supplies of non-oxygenated fuel, and the unpopular gas will be back from Nov. 1, 2004 through March 2005.

"I think the state is committed to that (the July date) and it should sail right through," Grover said. "On the other hand, the State Implementation Plan for particulate pollution control (PM10) is still not approved after seven years."

Herbert said the fact that state air quality officials haven't completed the maintenance report is an example of "either low priority or incompetence."

"We're a little bit frustrated and disappointed," he said, "By all accounts, we should not have (had) to have it (oxygenated fuel) this year."

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