Policing the Pumps

Gas Prices are going up again In Bismarck regular unleaded gas is three dollars and thirty-six cents Dickinson stations are at about three dollars and twenty four cents per gallon However are you getting what you are paying for Brad Feldman shows us why some people have questions and who is checking the pumps They are clearly marked But how do you know for sure this is what you are getting Mark Leischner UniStop A lot of the stores in town have chosen to put ethanol in their regular gas because it is quite a bit cheaper However this is where Leischner says the problem starts The North Dakota Health Department has a division that travels throughout the state testing the 650 stations for gas quality Gary Berreth ND Health Dept typically the lab will check for the octane ethanol percentage and water setiment Berreth says each year his five member team collects six hundred to eleven hundred samples Gary Berreth ND Health Dept Our sampling is random so some stations we ll probably hit more than once a year or some stations wont get checked maybe once every couple years In the past three years one hundred and thirty three stations in Bismarck Mandan and Dickinson have been tested Only three of those stations had violations Each of the violations had to do with stations not labeling the pumps for gas that included ethanol Mark Leischner UniStop Its hard to be humble but I really wish that everybody would label it properly market it in a proper way and forget about profits and worry about customer satisfaction To get the attention of consumers Leischner has put this sign in front of his store in south Bismarck He says it s because so many people are coming in asking about ethanol in their gas But for Leischner its a much bigger issue that goes beyond his station reporter Are there stations cheating in Bismarck Mark Leischner Unistop -laughing- Brad Feldman KX News If a station is caught selling gas with ethanol without marking the pump properly they could be charged with a Class B Misdemeanor The punishment carries a maximum thirty days in jail and a one thousand dollar fine Berreth says since he has been with the department they have not forwarded a case to the states attorney