by David Ball
Staff Writer
Over the next few weeks, as many as 10 Gate gas stations in Jacksonville will be completely shut down for more than eight hours as thousands of dollars in new electrical equipment is installed at each location. Adding to the cost is the replacement of perishable refrigerated food and a significant loss in sales revenue.
Nearly a dozen other stations will follow suit. But these “upgrades” aren’t by choice, they’re results of a new state law requiring some gasoline wholesalers and retailers near major highways and hurricane evacuation routes to make their stations generator-ready.
While the law is supposed to ensure the availability of fuel following a storm, some in the fuel industry say it fails at that task and only succeeds in creating an enormous burden for retailers. One of those industry leaders is Jim Smith, president of the Florida Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association.
“The small (station owners) are just going to have to close during hurricane season. Some of them are looking at that,” said Smith. “We’re dealing with the 800 pound gorilla, and that’s the government of the state of Florida. They say jump, you say how high on the way up.”
The state legislature enacted Florida Statute 526.143 in 2006 in response to the devastating 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons and the reported gasoline shortages that followed, particularly in South Florida after Hurricane Wilma in October 2005.
The fuel shortages were believed to be from a lack of electrical power, and so more than 1,000 fuel outlets were required to install transfer switches for generator hook-up by June 1. The cost of such an installation was believed to be somewhere around $2,000, which Smith said turned out to be far from true.
“Sadly, it’s really between eight and 18,000 per facility,” said Smith. “The testimony that was given [to the legislature] was incorrect. They were talking about transfer switches for the average home, not a business.
“When you get to these convenient stores, they have three-phase, 600- amp or higher service, and that requires a dramatically larger transfer switch,” added Smith. “Which is why my members are just so ecstatic about an unfunded mandate where we bear all the responsibility.”
Still, about 99 percent of the identified stations have either come into compliance (58 percent) or are working to come into compliance (41 percent), according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which enforces the requirements.
That’s quite an improvement from just two months ago, when a list compiled by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection showed that 31 percent of the stations were in compliance. In Duval County, only two out of 40 wholesale and retail stations had transfer switches installed.
But according to the latest Department of Agriculture report, 11 retail stations are now in compliance in Duval, another 19 are “pending” with progress towards compliance and six stations reportedly have transfer switches installed but have not supplied documentation to the Department of Agriculture. One station, the North Edgewood Citgo, is not in any phase of compliance and is being referred for enforcement action.
“We are conferring with the Florida attorney general’s office on how to proceed with enforcement,” said Department of Agriculture Spokesman Terence McElroy. “The problem is that many of the stations are old and antiquated, and the first thing they need is a building permit from the county.
“Some counties won’t give them permits because they aren’t sufficiently modern for the new wiring,” McElroy added. “At that point, while that station wouldn’t be in compliance, it wouldn’t make any sense to take enforcement action against them.”
Permitting is just one issue, with others being hiring a qualified contractor to perform the work, working with electric utilities to shut down the power and the costs associated with the installation and a temporarily powered-down station.
“It’s a little more involved with going in and plugging in something,” said George Nail, vice president of marketing development for Gate. “It’s tough for everyone, it’s tough for Gate. It’s capital expenditures that we didn’t plan. Rather, the government planned it for us.”
Nail wouldn’t say the specific costs of the installations, except they were “considerable” and spread across many Gate stations in Florida. Nail also wasn’t specific on his opinion of the effectiveness of the new law in ensuring fuel availability post hurricane.
“Gate intends to be a good provider of services during a catastrophe or without a catastrophe,” said Nail. “But there is more to the equation than just the generator.”
Smith was more specific, claiming that targeting stations along evacuation routes wasn’t logical and the law overlooked that the real cause of fuel shortages after storms is not a lack of electricity, but a lack of fuel.
“You don’t need a generator for an evacuation. If you need a generator, it’s too late to evacuate,” Smith said. “Secondly, there’s not going to be any gas once a hurricane passes. Each one would’ve had their inventory depleted during the evacuation. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”