07/16/08 Getting What You Pay For

Getting What You Pay For. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Ever been over charged for an item at the store? You probably quickly brought it to someone's attention and requested a refund, right? With today's high gas prices and those gas pumps spinning a mile a minute, how do you know you really are getting what you pay for? Mike Louisell, Public Information Officer with the Washington State Department of Agriculture says someone is watching. LOUISELL: We inspect a pump on the average of every 28 months and we've found that 94% of the time they seem to be right on and other times if we see it is off ½ of 1%, we would take that pump out of service until the station owner was able to make a repair. The State Ag Department works with Weights and Measures to inspect the gas pumps for accuracy and Louisell explains about the ½ of 1% discrepancy. LOUISELL: Just to put that into perspective, if you bought 10 gallons of fuel, that means the amount that could be off would be about a half a can of soda so they're very tight tolerances and we have about 14 inspectors that are inspecting fuel, gas and diesel pumps  biodiesel pumps around the state and our main goal is to make sure they are accurate. Louisell says they not only make sure you getting a full gallon of gasoline but that the quality of the fuel is good. LOUISELL: Our second goal is to make sure that the quality of that fuel meets standards such as octane requirements and our inspectors also verify that water condensation in the storage tanks don't exceed national standards because you don't want water in your gas tank. So what if the pump is working in my favor? Louisell says they don't play favoritism. He does say that if you suspect your local gas station is not pumping accurately to contact them. LOUISELL: We do have our phone number, our consumer hotline phone number which is 360-902-1857 on the pump. We also realize that people can't remember phone numbers all that well so we have our stickers on the pumps showing the last time it was inspected and passed inspection and our sticker has our email address to reach our weights and measures program. Due to the quickly raising gas prices a few station owners were forced to make upgrades to pumps that could not handle the price changes. If you have any questions about either the pumps or the fuel you are pumping, contact the state Weights and Measures Department. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.