Costly gas makes Utahns creative
Alternative Fuel? Try Hay
By Lesley Mitchell
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Mellissa Evans thought she had found a new way to rein in her expenses as gasoline prices escalated.
The Tooele High School senior began hoofing it to school this week on her 11-year-old gelding, Nighthawk. Joined by junior Chapa Stevenson and her horse, Wink, the pair made the 30-mile trek between their homes in Rush Valley and school twice a day on horseback.
But school officials told them Thursday that horses on school grounds are against the rules.
"I guess we have to go back to carpooling," said Evans, who kept her horse in a stall inside the high school's animal laboratory while she was in class. "When you have a car that gets 10 miles per gallon, you have to do something."
In the weeks since gas prices reached record highs, people throughout Utah have taken creative steps to reduce their gas bills.
Some are taking big steps, such as trading in gas-guzzling vehicles or trying to find a job closer to home. Others are making smaller changes, telecommuting one or more days a week or trying to drive less on weekends.
The average cost of a gallon of unleaded gasoline rose to a high of $2.91 per gallon on Sept. 10 after Hurricane Katrina took several Gulf oil refineries off line. In recent days, gas prices in Utah have fallen by five cents to $2.86 per gallon.
More drops were expected. But with Hurricane Rita now bearing down on the nation's largest group of refineries, prices nationally and in Utah are set to rise again, said Rolayne Fairclough, spokeswoman for travel services company AAA Utah.
Ken Stern, managing director of FTI Consulting, which advises refineries on business strategy, predicted $4 a gallon at the pump for gasoline within two weeks. In Utah, which has one of the lowest average gas prices nationwide, consumers easily could pay more than $3 a gallon again. How much more, no one knows for sure.
''In an environment where capacity is constrained and demand continues pretty much unabated, that's a formula for significantly higher prices,'' Stern said.
More refineries, and oil and natural gas rigs along the Gulf Coast and potentially in Rita's path, were shut down Thursday in anticipation of the hurricane hitting shore early Saturday.
About 5 percent of the nation's oil-refining capacity is still off-line due to damage from Hurricane Katrina, which hit Louisiana and Mississippi. Refineries in the Houston area represent another 13 percent of the nation's capacity.
''It's potentially a bigger threat than Katrina because there is more refining capacity in the Houston area,'' said Bob Slaughter, president of the National Petroleum & Refining Association. ''This is a double whammy for the industry - it's an amazing thing to contemplate.''
In Rush Valley, Mellissa Evans' mother, Karren, is disappointed her daughter can't ride her horse to school anymore to help offset the expected price increases.
"It took hours for her to get to school," she said. "But hay is much cheaper than gas."
