Duane Hicks
With the repair or replacement of the fuel storage tank at the Sorting Gap Marina remaining a necessary item on the town’s capital budget for 2009, council continues to debate whether it should stay in the business of selling gas to boaters there.
At Monday’s budget meeting, Community Services manager George Bell said it will cost about $35,000 to repair the underground tank currently located at the marina.
He’s still waiting for pricing on an above ground tank, as requested by council at its Jan. 19 budget meeting.
But Mayor Roy Avis again brought up the point that if the town is making no profit on gas sales, why should it pay to fix the tank and continue to sell fuel there when it could shut it down and let private enterprises benefit?
Bell said the town does make some money from fuel sales (about $2,000-3,000 each year, depending on the fluctuations in pricing), and that the people who fuel up at the marina mainly are those who rent slips there.
As such, he wondered if stopping to offer fuel would affect slip rentals.
Coun. Ken Perry noted it doesn’t make sense to spend $35,000 to fix a fuel tank that only returns $2,000-3,000 a year—and will have to be fixed again or replaced in 10 years.
CAO Mark McCaig questioned whether a marina without gas service would only be a “glorified ice cream stand?”
“At some point, the town fathers wanted to have a marina,” he noted. “We have the docks there, and I really believe if you don’t have gas available there, they’re going to dock somewhere else.
“Are we going to have a marina or shut down the marina—I think it kind of goes hand in hand,” McCaig stressed.
Coun. Rick Wiedenhoeft said he was in favour of replacing the fuel tank, though perhaps with a smaller one at a lesser cost.
“I believe we’re in the service business. That’s our job as a council—to provide service to the citizens of Fort Frances,” he added. “Most of our services cost us money, they don’t return money to our coffers.
“You have to remember that.”
Before making any decisions, Coun. John Albanese said he’d like to see a survey of those who rent boat slips to determine the impact of stopping fuel sales at the marina.
Operations and Facilities manager Doug Brown said there are cheaper alternatives the town could look into, such as a mobile fuel tank, but also questioned the wisdom of continuing fuel service there, adding he felt few people who launched at the Sorting Gap rented slips there or bought gas there.
“I know I trailer a boat, too, and I take my jerry cans across the river. That’s just the way it is,” Brown said. “And I am not the only one—I have watched all you guys go across there.
“I’m not the only one doing that,” he stressed. “That’s what it gets down to.”
Council agreed it wouldn’t be willing to make any decisions until it had costs in front of them for the various alternatives, including above ground tanks of various sizes and mobile fuel storage tanks.
