2 Southwest Florida gas stations trying to fix water contamination

Reporter: Amy Galo, Asha Patel
Published: Updated:
contaminated gas
Gas pumps out of order. CREDIT: WINK News

Why are two gas stations that are miles apart dealing with water contamination in their fuel? WINK News reported the Sunoco gas station in Lehigh Acres and the Chevron in North Naples both had water in their fuel.

The Department of Agriculture hasn’t explained why as of 5 p.m. on Monday, but crews are hard at work and have been since Friday.

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Crews working to repair contaminated gas. CREDIT: WINK News

Gas prices are enough to stress many drivers out.

“I spend like maybe $25, $30, maybe $25 every other day because I’m a delivery driver,” said Juon from Lehigh Acres.

But drivers are wondering if there is water in the gas they’re paying for after the recent heavy rain.

“It flooded all over here. It went all up under the ground,” said Juon.

Some local gas stations have already put out red bags showing they are out of order after water contaminated their gas.

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Out-of-order gas pump. CREDIT: WINK News

“Oh, man! I can’t even think about that right now,” said Juon.

So far, WINK News is aware the Sunoco located at 1360 Lee Blvd in Lehigh Acres and the Chevron at 8901 Tamiami Trail N in North Naples were affected. The issue has left many drivers thinking and being cautious.

“It could happen anywhere. We could be anywhere; it could be any one of these gas stations. We are just taking a chance right now by putting fuel in our tanks,” said Juon.

The drivers WINK News spoke to said they want inspections to check them all.

So WINK News reached out to the Department of Agriculture to ask how regularly the tanks are inspected. Turns out, they operate on a risk-based approach when it comes to inspections, looking at consumer complaints and the history of issues in an area.

A spokesperson told WINK News they can’t answer how water got into the tanks, but he did say it’s more common for water to get into the underground gas tanks after a major flooding event.

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