Delaware residents get their fill in Maryland

By Jonathan Starkey
Staff Reporter

Millville resident Jackie Young said that she rarely travels across the Maryland border in her four-door Mercury just to fill up her tank. She picks up family members to get pizza or to go shopping in the neighboring state and purchases gas at the Citgo on 139th Street in Ocean City on the way back.

But despite a dinner trip to Harpoon Hannah’s on Monday, her underlying reason for heading to Ocean City that day seemed obvious.

As she filled up her gas tank at the 139th Street Citgo 711, she said, “Why do you think I’m here? Sometimes (gas is) 35 cents cheaper.”

At the Fenwick Island Citgo about a mile from the 139th Steet spot, a gallon of regular unleaded fuel cost $3.09 Monday — 26 cents more expensive than the $2.83 it cost in Ocean City. In Bethany Beach, the Route 26 Valero and Route 1 BP stations offered the same unleaded price of $3.07 per gallon Monday. The Exxon station at 142nd Street in Ocean City sold regular at $2.99 a gallon the same day, while prices at the Exxon station on Route 54 outside Fenwick Island topped even the Bethany Beach numbers.

Although the average cost of Delaware regular unleaded gas dropped 6 cents, to $3.05 per gallon, over the weekend — partly because of decreasing tensions worldwide — some Delaware residents still see the worth in making the trip across the border, where gas prices aren’t affected by government mandates.

“It’s cheaper,” said Michael Hicks, a Georgetown resident who works in the area. “It’s definitely worth the trip.”

Ocean View resident Debbie Dyer agreed. Like Young, Dyer said that she doesn’t make special trips but she and her three sons, who all drive SUV’s, stop in Maryland to get gas whenever possible.

“Whenever I come down here, I fill up,” said Dyer, as she filled her 2006 Range Rover with premium gas at the Ocean City Citgo, at $3.08 a gallon. Gallons of premium in Fenwick on Monday cost $3.29. “It’s always been a little cheaper,” she said, adding that in the last two to three months, there has been a “substantial difference.”

In April, governmental mandates required that only gas formulated with 10 percent ethanol be sold in some parts of the country, making the product more expensive to produce and transport, according to AAA Spokesperson Ela Voluck. Reformulated gas was mandated in all of Delaware, but in only 13 Maryland counties, Voluck said. And the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland were not included in those 13.

Despite similar state gas taxes in Maryland and Delaware — 23.5 cents and 23 cents, respectively — the clean-air requirement will continue to make a difference, she added.

“Ethanol is much more expense,” Voluck said. “Any state (using) ethanol will have higher prices.”

Young said she understood ethanol’s effect on gas prices in Delaware but didn’t understand the logic of the clean-air rule.

“I know it’s all the additives,” she said, “but what good does it do if everyone in Delaware comes (to Maryland) to get their gas? What’s the point?”

Some Delaware residents these days find themselves weighing the staggering additional cost of gasoline against the potential benefits to the environment. And, often, their pocketbooks win that debate.

Ocean View resident Lauren Prendergast has found herself asking that question. Prendergast, who filled the tank in her Jeep Cherokee at Fenwick’s Citgo on Monday with $3.19 mid-grade unleaded, said she did so because someone told her that gas was cheaper at the Delaware station. But after hearing of the prices one mile to the south, she will no longer fill up on this side of the line, she said.

“I’m going to Maryland tomorrow.”