Rising gas prices impact the Basin

Businesses, consumers battling high fuel costs GTA schedule changes coordinated

area factory shifts

GRANT COUNTY — Debby Laramore-Odle could not afford to get to work were it not for the bus.

A resident of Sunland Estates in George, Laramore-Odle works at Columbia Basin Job Corps.

"With the gas prices like they are now, it's a real life saver for me," Laramore-Odle said. "I couldn't afford to work where I work if it wasn't for buses."

Laramore-Odle has been riding the bus to and from work for three years. She originally planned to go back to driving until the gas prices "went crazy" and now she has to ride the bus.

"It's not a choice, it's a have to," she said.

Prices are expected to increase even more in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which shut down oil and natural gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico, representing about 8 percent of U.S. refining capacity or about 1 million barrels, further driving up gasoline prices, according to the Associated Press.

The AP also reported Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said Wednesday the Bush administration has decided to release oil from federal petroleum reserves to help refiners affected by Hurricane Katrina.

"Because we're still in the high demand season and will be through Labor Day, the storm does come through at a bad time," said David Overstreet, public affairs director for the American Automobile Association Washington/Inland based in Spokane. He said Tuesday morning that consumers could look for gas prices to go up in the next 24 to 48 hours as a result, with analysts projecting an increase of between 10 to 15 cents per gallon.

Crude oil recently reached a high of $70 a barrel, Overstreet also pointed out. While the price did drop back down below $70, the price of crude oil accounts for 40 to 50 percent of the price consumers pay per gallon at the pump.

"When crude is high, you can rest assured the price of gasoline will also be high," he said.

Consumers can also expect the prices to increase any time there's disruption to refining operations and the amount of the product that is available is reduced, he said.

"It certainly doesn't look real good short term for prices," Overstreet said.

He participated Tuesday in a conference call with other AAA representatives across the country, and a representative from the Oil Price Information Service, who has monitored oil price information for 25 years.

"He's concerned because the oil infrastructure has been slowed down by the storm," Overstreet relayed, noting that about half of the the country's production has been impacted.

The analyst said that the West Coast could be somewhat shielded because it is not totally dependent upon the pipelines coming from the affected Gulf Coast, but with a shortage in the whole production and supply chain, some fuel that would have come into the West Coast may be going to other parts of the country until the impact is mitigated.

"(The analyst said) the price reaction has been the worst case scenario," Overstreet said. "Whole sale prices have gone up significantly. He seems to think we are going to hit $3 a gallon as a result."

The higher prices could lead to a big increase in ridership for Grant Transit Authority. While unable to report whether there has been a major jump in riders, operations supervisor Terry Fields said the company's own fueling costs have definitely increased.

"That's pretty much a gimme there," Fields said.

He added that he has a gut feeling that there will be a big increase in riders when the GTA bus routes change, starting Thursday.

"We have just redone our schedule so much and coordinated with the factories," agreed Brandy Heston, GTA administrative assistant and clerk of the board. GTA received a grant to provide transportation for all three shifts to a processing plant in Warden. GTA will also meet shift times for plants located on Wheeler Road and in Quincy and provide transportation to workers to and from Ephrata before the 8 a.m. work hour and again in the afternoon.

Heston said she didn't know how much of an increase in ridership GTA may see.

"It may take a little while to actually pick up," she said, noting that from Sept. 1 to Sept. 9 is fare-free, so people can try and see if the new schedule will work for them before purchasing a pass.

The changes work perfectly for Laramore-Odle.

"Brandy called before the schedule was put into place to see how it would work for me, so I just can't complain at all about how they treated me," she said. "(GTA) has been very accommodating, they have just helped me out like you can't even believe."

Laramore-Odle added that since she began riding the bus, three other CBJC employees have followed suit.

But Beatriz Herrera, owner with husband Bill of Lakefront RV Park in Moses Lake, said her business has not really been impacted.

"I think people from this area, especially from Washington, are still going to vacation," Herrera said last week. "They're not going as far. I don't see that many people coming from or going to California. (But we) still have a lot of people coming from the West Coast, the Seattle area, Spokane, the Tri-Cities."

More people are leaving their RVs at Herrera's park, she reported.

"That way they wouldn't have to take it back and forth, (and it's) even cheaper," she said. A $2,000 cost to fuel up an RV for a trip to and back can be trumped by a $300 cost to leave it in Moses Lake, she said, and "have like a little vacation home."

There's no vacation from the road for those traveling on the carnival circuit. Pat Davis, owner of Davis Shows Northwest Carnival, explained that carnivals are just like any other business in the way the price of gas is impacting their industry.

"We're the same as farmers or anybody else, maybe even worse than anybody else," he said. The carnival, which was in Moses Lake earlier this month for the Grant County Fair, relies on diesel for transportation, to power its operations and bring in freight and goods.

Grant County Fairgrounds fair and facility manager Al Holman has praised Davis Shows for maintaining low prices in the face of high fuel costs.

Davis explained that the carnival sets its prices anywhere from three to five months ahead of time, and can't really pass higher costs on at that point.

"There's a limit to what a family can afford to pay," he said. "We're disposable income. We're not the heat bill, the rent or the food bill."

Temporarily, with set-ups in Tri-Cities and Walla Walla, Davis said an oil company he has worked with before has locked in a price for Davis Shows, anticipating their usage for the time they are operating in those areas.

"It's not been uncommon for the price to change three times in a week this summer, and not go down but go up," Davis said, adding that he will not have that comfort zone in other locations. "(I'd prefer it be) locked in price from spring than locked in price in the beginning of the week."

Davis added that his company tries to make the carnival experience as attractive as possible, but he doesn't know where carnivals will be able to meet in the middle, remaining attractive to the public and still paying the bills.

"The amusement industry would have to reinvent itself," he said. "I don't know where the money would come from, if these things would have to become permanent parks … Something's got to give and I don't know what it is."

Overstreet said that the AAA emphasizes fuel conservation efforts whenever possible by using a vehicle with better gas mileage if possible, using a bus service or carpooling, maintaining and servicing vehicles and making sure the tires are properly inflated.

Overstreet also cautioned consumers against "gimmick approaches" to solving the high gas price problems, like a chain e-mail campaign advising a one-day boycott, which wouldn't work because not enough people would participate.

"On a daily basis, try to be a good utilizers of the product, as a general way of operating," Overstreet advised. The AAA has also heard more and more anecdotal examples of people trying to "game" the system, like driving off from the pump without paying or siphoning gas from other vehicles. "Those types of incidents tend to increase as the price of gas becomes higher."

Typically after Labor Day, gas prices tend to come down, Overstreet said. But there are a multitude of factors in the world situation that there's no control over.

"What happens this year remains to be seen," he said.