siege day 43

Today, on a suggestion from the PDEQ lady, I started looking into car exhaust. It appears that Tucson switches from the oxygenated winter blend gasoline to the summer blend on April 1, and most stations start a little before then, so the timing is right for the pollutant that's killing us EIs. So far I learned that gasoline comes to Tucson from El Paso (pdf), and we take some (the rest goes to Phoenix) and put it in the 'tank farm,' which is right next to the west edge of the Air Force base and consists of a whole bunch of storage tanks you use to fill gasoline trucks. Then when the gas is in the truck, you add whichever additive you need to make it a specific brand, and off it goes to the stations. Thus I learned that Circle Ks are Conoco stations, we don't have any BPs, and we have twice as many Shell stations as Chevron stations.

I would call Conoco, Chevron, and Shell to see if they changed anything, but it's way after 5 pm, plus now the grapevine has reported that the whole problem is that the base is burning its used degreasers along with some hydraulic fluid or cleaner (I forgot which). I can't really believe the base would burn hazardous waste or store it for four years before burning it, but stranger things have happened, so the FOIA request is half written. You can't just ask a simple question with one of those -- you have to request records, so I'm trying to be specific but not too specific, and we'll just have to see what happens. They have 20 days to get to your request after they receive it, so the answer should be in plenty of time for me to tell the newsletter editor something before the next edition.