First drop in months still leaves Mono with some of highest prices in nation
Published in The Mammoth Times on July 14, 2022
For the past few months, gas prices across the nation have been steadily rising until last week when prices dropped slightly for the first time all season, right before July 4, to ‘only’ $7.15 for a gallon of regular at the Shell Station in Lee Vining, and, $7.06 for a gallon of regular at the Shell Station in Mammoth, as of press time. If that still sounds high, it’s because it is; Mono County has some of the highest gas prices in the nation due to its isolation from major markets and this week is no different.
While visitors can blanche and pay the higher prices for a few fill-ups then retreat to higher-density markets where gas is cheaper, things are not so simple for locals. The bottom line is residents, tourists, and business owners have all been affected by this rise in prices, prompting a change in daily routines and even changing perceptions of the way the Eastside economy functions, according to interviews with locals.
As the cost of fuel has increased, gas stations have had to accordingly increase what they charge, said Shelly Channel, owner of the Shell gas station in Lee Vining. “I’m not making any more than I did in the first year [of running this gas station]. I set my profit at the beginning of each year, projected on what I think my costs will be. Our cost for fuel, since February, has gone up $2. But we’re not making any more,” he said.
This steady increase in the price of gas has affected locals and altered the way that many people go about their daily lives. Edder Lara, a June Lake resident, said that the higher price of gas has made him start thinking about cost in terms of hours of labor. “You get paid $15 minimum wage, [and it’s] $7 for a gallon of gas. That’s a big thing to sink in, to think that half of your paycheck is going to gas. Five hours [of work] for a whole tank of gas, or more. That’s how I see it,” he said. “One gallon of gas is literally thirty minutes of your life.”
In a rural area like the Eastern Sierra, commuting to and from work and even driving to get groceries is an essential part of many residents’ routines. Yet many are having to reconcile how they manage this, due to the cost that some call exorbitant. Lara said that he and his family have begun driving in the same car more often. Eva Francaviglia, a Mono City resident who commutes to work in June Lake five days a week or more often, said that she fills her tank at the Costco station in Reno whenever possible.
Francaviglia now questions whether she can continue to afford driving to work in the first place. “Some days I’m like, can I afford to go to work anymore? Or can I only afford to go to work and I can’t go anywhere else, because gas is so high and I just don’t want to use any of it?” she asked. Since gas prices began rising in the winter, she said, she has continually had to consider, “How much money can I put towards gas and how much can I put towards my own savings account?”
While high gas prices are a current national issue, they have become more extreme in rural areas, in part due to the way that business runs differently. Channel has always had to charge more per gallon than urban areas, he said, because the gas station does not make money year round. “I do make more per gallon than a guy in the city, but he has a steady volume year round. We don’t. I pay my employees year round. I have to charge enough, in the busy months, to pay them and cover my expenses all year,” he said. “In the winter… if we break even on a day — which a lot of days we don’t — I’m happy if I can cover costs. And I probably don’t, most of the time.”
Thus, the rising cost of gas has exacerbated a situation in which business owners oftentimes charge more for their product than an area that sustains year-round business. Yet the trouble is, some worry those high gas prices might begin to deter the very tourism that keeps these businesses running.
Channel said that as of right now, the increase in gas prices hasn’t changed customers’ driving habits so significantly that the station’s revenue has decreased, but the potential for that to change over the course of the summer is foreboding. “Tourism is what drives Lee Vining. It almost pretty much drives Mono County… so far, people seem to be traveling,” he said.
One tourist filling up his camper van at the Lee Vining Shell station spoke on these same ideas. Passing through Mono County, he said his goal has been to just get four or five gallons to top off the tank until he reaches areas with cheaper prices, in the hope to “negate some of the expense.”
This tourist said that he loves the Eastern Sierra and since visiting for the first time last year, he has come back two or three more times. Yet the price of fuel might push him to start traveling north from his home in Arizona towards Wyoming and Montana, instead of California.
“If California keeps the fuel prices as high as they are, at baseline, I’m not planning on coming back to California for quite some time, just because it’s so expensive,” he said. “When it was 50, 75 cents more than Phoenix, it was no big deal, but now it’s a big difference, almost two dollars a gallon difference, coming through California.”
Residents of the region, who do not have the option of buying only four or five gallons of gas to make it down the next stretch of highway, don’t feel that much can be done locally to lower gas prices. But many did have thoughts on the role that larger structural issues play in this situation.
Lara reflected that the impact of high gas prices illustrates a larger issue with the control that tourism has over pricing in the area. “We do live off of tourism, and that is a problem,” he said. “They control the prices up here.”
When businesses selling essential items, like gas stations or grocery stores, have to raise their prices in order to make it through the winter, tourists aren’t the only ones who have to start spending more money. “Local people have to buy it from them too,” said Lara. “It’s not just expensive for them [tourists], but it’s expensive for us.” And that impact is disproportionate, he noted, because most “people that come up here, they have money.” High gas prices, he said, might inconvenience a tourist for one day, but can devastate a local family.
“We have to deal with it, there’s no ‘oh, let’s go over there,’ or just pass by. How else are we going to get gas?” he said. “Living here in town, we have to deal with the prices, how much money we make, how much work we get, and everything. We as locals, we have to deal with it.”
Channel, meanwhile, reflected on the hand that other larger forces have in raising prices like gas. “I think it’s corporations. Just personally, I feel like there’s a lot of greed,” he said. “I heard that Shell International just had their biggest quarterly returns ever. Well, no wonder.”