As Tony Spezza pulled into the Chevron on Thursday to fill his Ford pickup truck, he captured his sentiments about the Island’s record-setting fuel prices and his own inefficient vehicle succinctly.
“You want to buy a truck?” he asked.
Spezza, who thought the truck he purchased six months ago got 21 miles per gallon, not the 12 it’s been logging, said he’s frustrated by the spiraling costs of fuel.
“It makes everything cost too much, every single thing,” he said, adding that he thinks politics are partly to blame. “What did people think when they hired a president from Texas?”
His frustration, of course, is widely shared.
With gas prices already among the highest in the state, Vashon set a new record last week: Premium and diesel broke $4 a gallon, and regular was hovering at around $3.89.
And according to the AAA, which is currently checking prices at 60,000 gas stations daily, Vashon’s prices appear to be near the top nationwide as well. The highest price the AAA found among those 60,000 stations (none of which are on Vashon) was in Wailuku, Hawaii, where regular was selling for $3.92 a gallon last week, just a few cents more than Vashon’s price for regular.
Other prices in Hawaii, known for having the most expensive gas in the country, were lower than Vashon’s last week. The highest price for regular in Honolulu, for instance, was $3.59, according to the AAA, and the highest price in Hilo was $3.77. The national average last week was $3.27 a gallon.
At the Chevron, one of four stations on Vashon, Islanders were philosophical about Vashon’s mounting gas prices.
“It’s the pits. But it is what it is,” said Cara Briskman, as she put two and a half gallons — or $10 worth — into her car, just enough to get her to Seattle where she’ll fill up. “All I can do is control my consumption.”
“I feel for people (who can’t afford it). It’s awful,” said Lois Fox, who’s lived on the Island since she was a young child. “But what can we do about it? It’s out of our control.”
The high prices are particularly difficult for those who drive as part of their business. At Blooms & Things, which delivers flowers on the Island, co-owner Jim Freeborn has had to raise his delivery fees from $6 at the end of 2006 to $9 as of this January. It’s a fee he’s willing to pay a driver, but even at $9 a pop, he can’t find anyone willing to do it — meaning that he and his business partner have to deliver their bouquets instead.
“I should raise prices again, but I’m not going to,” he said. “I’m going to leave it at $9 and hope the price comes down.”
Paul Engels, who owns Engels Repair & Towing on Maury Island, said that even as a gas retailer he, too, is feeling the pinch.
“We’re definitely feeling it in our business, because the tow trucks still have to run,” he said. “You have to fill the darn things up. But the costs of the call haven’t gone up to match the increasing fuel costs. The general public doesn’t like the costs of anything going up, especially a tow.”
And then there’s the Vashon Island School District, which has seen its fuel costs skyrocket in the last five years. In February 2004, the district spent $3,705 for diesel to fuel its fleet of buses that month, according to Martha Ernst, who handles accounts payable for the district. This past February, its monthly fuel bill was $7,668 — twice what it paid five years ago and a $2,000 climb from only the year before.
“Williams Heating gives us the best rate they can,” Ernst said. “But it’s still a huge expense for us.”
Vashon’s high gas prices, like those across the country, are largely due to the complexities of Middle East politics and the esoteric world of the commodities market.
The price of a barrel of crude reached record highs last month — in March, it topped at $110 a barrel, compared to $50 to $60 a barrel in the early part of 2007. According to news accounts, high crude prices are being bid upward mostly because of the dollar’s decline against the euro, which has prompted a surge in investments in financially safe commodities like oil.
The situation is compounded in Washington state, which is home to a few oil refineries but, unlike a lot of other states, doesn’t have pipelines linking it to the largest U.S. oil refineries, located in the Midwest, Texas and Louisiana.
And adding to Vashon’s plight is, of course, its dependence on ferries — or, as Spezza pointed out, that fact that Vashon has “a large moat around it.”
Dennis Williams, owner of Williams Heating, who provides fuel for two of the gas stations and his own pumps, says he brings gasoline to the Island once a week. But because gas is a hazardous material that cannot cross the Sound by way of regular ferry service, he and other carries of hazardous material have to charter a state ferry, and by law, they’re required to pay 150 percent of the ferry’s operating costs.
That can translate into a $1,300 delivery fee for Vashon’s gas, assuming the tank truck is the only vehicle on the boat, he said. Often it’s not, so Washington State Ferries divvies up the costs of a ferry shuttle — but even then, the fare adds considerably to Vashon’s gas prices, he said.
Williams said the fact that he and other “haz-mat” carriers have to pay the cost of a roundtrip service for each leg of the trip — the price is $650 — doesn’t make sense, since Washington State Ferries has to come back anyway with a boat full of cars.
“It’s completely unfair,” he said.
It’s not just those who are consuming fossil fuels who are wincing at the gas pumps. Biodiesel, an alternative to petroleum that has become fairly popular on Vashon over the last few years, has also seen a dramatic climb — largely because demand has outstripped supply, said Williams, who sells the fuel. B20, which is 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petroleum, was selling for $4.29 a gallon on Vashon last week. B99, which is 99 percent biodiesel, was selling for $4.99 a gallon.
Beth Bordner, whose family converted to biodiesel about three years ago, considers herself a strong conservationist committed to the environmentally friendlier biodiesel to fuel her car. But even she balked at $4.99 a gallon and filled her tank with B20 the last time she pulled up to the pump at Williams Heating.
“I guess that crossed a threshold for me. I just couldn’t do it,” she said.
Vashon’s fuel prices are not the highest in Washington, however. In the San Juan Islands, where ferry crossings are much longer, regular reached an all-time high of $3.97 a gallon last week. And premium, which was $4.09 on Vashon last week, was $4.18.
