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Question on Marine Gas in Delta
- Thread starter Flutterby
- Start date
Escape Route
Member
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2009
- RO Number
- 31402
- Messages
- 15
The best answer to your question is…….. It depends!!!
Thanks to California’s wonderful lawmakers and the California Air Resource Board (aka CARB, who are a bunch of communists who make up their own science to fit their needs) there is no straight answer. First ethanol is not required in CA gasoline. Ca gasoline is required to be oxygenated and ethanol is an oxygenate. How much oxygenate is required depends on which air district you are in and what month of the year it is. (NO, I only wish I was making this up) In the Delta and Bay the higher oxygenate levels are required May1 – Oct 31 so during the summer you are likely to see more ethanol in gasoline then during the winter. Not all gasoline needs to meet the requirements it is the manufactures/distributors average that needs to meet the requirements. And the tier 3 requirements go into effect Dec. 31st of this year so the formulas will all change again. (Any wonder so many businesses are leaving California!)
Now that I have vented some of my frustrations……. The only way to know for sure is ask at the pump. The guy pumping the gas may not know but ask who the distributor is and they will know (by law). Most marine stations in Northern CA are not getting ethanol gasoline due to all the problems with fiberglass tanks, long term storage and water, and the sue happy state we are in. The distributors are making their averages on other lines of distribution so for the most part if you’re buying gas at the marina and not at the car gas stations odds are pretty good you should not have a problem. But the only way to know for sure is ask. Each marina can be different.
Thanks to California’s wonderful lawmakers and the California Air Resource Board (aka CARB, who are a bunch of communists who make up their own science to fit their needs) there is no straight answer. First ethanol is not required in CA gasoline. Ca gasoline is required to be oxygenated and ethanol is an oxygenate. How much oxygenate is required depends on which air district you are in and what month of the year it is. (NO, I only wish I was making this up) In the Delta and Bay the higher oxygenate levels are required May1 – Oct 31 so during the summer you are likely to see more ethanol in gasoline then during the winter. Not all gasoline needs to meet the requirements it is the manufactures/distributors average that needs to meet the requirements. And the tier 3 requirements go into effect Dec. 31st of this year so the formulas will all change again. (Any wonder so many businesses are leaving California!)
Now that I have vented some of my frustrations……. The only way to know for sure is ask at the pump. The guy pumping the gas may not know but ask who the distributor is and they will know (by law). Most marine stations in Northern CA are not getting ethanol gasoline due to all the problems with fiberglass tanks, long term storage and water, and the sue happy state we are in. The distributors are making their averages on other lines of distribution so for the most part if you’re buying gas at the marina and not at the car gas stations odds are pretty good you should not have a problem. But the only way to know for sure is ask. Each marina can be different.