Neighbors lose hundreds of dollars from bad gasoline at Cape Coral station

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Petroleum inspect at an Orion Station in Cape Coral Tuesday. (Credit: WINK News)
Petroleum inspect at an Orion Station in Cape Coral Tuesday. (Credit: WINK News)

Two Cape Coral drivers told WINK News they are out of hundreds of dollars after fueling up with contaminated gasoline.

Last Thursday, Scott Stefanko filled his tank at the Orion Fuels on Santa Barbara Blvd. in Cape Coral. It cost him about $20.

Stefanko took his car to the dealer who told him he has “contaminated fuel.” He has to pay close to $400 to fix it.

After hearing this, we stopped by the gas station and found we were not the only ones checking out their gas. Only WINK News was there as the Dept. of Agriculture spent house inspecting each pump a the station.

That is when we met Vanessa Delgado. Her story was sadly similar to Stefanko’s.

“He’s like yeah, all of our sensors are saying the gas was bad,” Delgado said. “It had too much water in it.”

Delgado said her car stopped working about 20 minutes after she filled up at the gas station Friday. Her bill was $900.

An employee inside the gas station store told us off-camera that it does not own the pump, but did hear there was an issue with a tank that was not sealed properly and water got inside.

The USDA inspector said someone flushed the line before she got here, so her samples came back okay.

But these two drivers, now each out of hundreds of dollars, want to know who is responsible.

Orion Fuels statement:

The gas station you’ve called about is a site purchased within the last year. We try to take every precaution with the stations we own and operate to avoid instances such as this one.  For example, when purchasing this site, we had a third party visit the site and run multiple tests on the Underground Storage Tanks and all lines (including a Hydrostatic test, Precision Tank & Line tests, etc.).

In addition to the our due diligence before a purchase, after we begin operating a site we do monthly visual inspections and maintain an electronic fuel monitoring system. Also, every time a driver drops off a load of gas at the site, they use “water finding paste” inside the tank to prevent this exact issue from happening.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, mistakes can still happen. When an issue is brought to our attention, we address the matter expeditiously. We ask any of our customers who have been affected to please reach out immediately to info@orionoil.com.

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