By Lauren Otis, Staff Writer
With the price of gas reaching new heights on an almost daily basis, drivers are looking for new ways to save every gallon. But who ensures that the outrageously-priced 15-gallon fill-up you just bought really is 15 full gallons?
The Mercer County Office of Weights and Measures guys, that’s who.
”A lot of people don’t know we are out here,” says John Worth, Mercer County’s superintendent for weights and measures, on a recent sun-washed morning at the Valero gas station at the corner of Princeton-Hightstown Road and Southfield Road in West Windsor.
A big white county Dodge Ram pickup with a set of scales stenciled on its side sits beside one of the pumps at the Valero station. Two men in blue uniforms — Assistant Superintendents Rich Jauss and Tony Migliaccio — are busy pumping gas into three identical metal graduates (freestanding containers called “provers” are used in some instances) which form part of a special assembly mounted on the pickup’s truckbed.
Mr. Migliaccio takes a metal suitcase containing a portable octane analyzer from the rear and puts it in the truck cab. “Get that out of the way. That’s worth $10,000. Wouldn’t want it to walk away,” he says.
Five gallons each of regular, plus and premium are pumped into the state-certified contraption, to see how close the pump comes to measuring five gallons exactly.
”All pretty much on the plus side,” says Mr. Jauss, as he resets the pump. This means the pump is actually giving consumers a little bit more than a gallon. Mr. Worth notes that most times the pumps balance out, with some on the plus side and some on the negative. A tolerance of 1 cubic inch per gallon, “probably a little under an ounce,” is allowable, he notes.
This is done for every grade of gas, for each pump, on each side of the pump at the gas station. Once each pump passes, a round inspection sticker is affixed to it, attesting to its certification by the county.
The county weights and measures department is based out of a modest office in the basement of the Mercer County administration building in Trenton. Heralding the work conducted within, a vintage 1940s Fairbanks standing scale sits in the hall beside the door.
If it’s sold by weight or bulk or size in this area, chances are Mr. Worth and his staff of two have tested the scale, pump or other device that measured it out, and recorded the results. As cities with a population of greater than 60,000 both Trenton and Hamilton are entitled to have their own separate weights and measures departments, which they do, and so are not served by Mr. Worth’s county office.
For a year, the county office has used a computerized records and inspection system — Windows for Weights and Measures, or WINWAM as they refer to it — and is the only weights and measures office in the state that is computerized, according to Mr. Worth.
”Anything that determines payment, any device you are going to base your payment on we inspect it for accuracy,” says Mr. Worth, an eight-year veteran of the weights and measures office, the last three as superintendent. Inspections are “99-percent unannounced,” he says.
That half-pound of sliced turkey you bought at the deli? The five-pound bag of potatoes you picked up at the supermarket? Mr. Worth’s team has checked to see that the store’s scale really gives you what you paid for.
From mom-and-pop delis with one scale, to the West Windsor Wegmans, which Mr. Worth says has upwards of 80 scales, each registered scale or pump — and all businesses are required to register any such devices used in public trade — is subject to an annual inspection. His department must inspect each and every one of the gas pumps at the approximately 65 stations in Mercer County outside of Trenton and Hamilton (which each have about 30 to 35 stations themselves), according to Mr. Worth.
Among the many measured products the office inspects are home heating oil, cords of firewood, lengths of carpet, timed public laundry dryers and car wash vacuum cleaners.
”We measure the time on the massage chairs you see at the malls,” he said. All in all, the county office has authority over “between four- and five-thousand devices, and they are inspected annually,” Mr. Worth said. “We are on the road constantly.”
Then there are the one-off oddities.
Mr. Worth describes needing to go to the West Windsor WaterWorks water park on Princeton-Hightstown Road after parents sought verification that the 42-inch measuring stick which all water park participants had to be taller than, was indeed a full 42 inches.
And last fall, Ewing resident Brian Moore was trying to get certified by the Guinness Book of World Records for having the tallest amaranth plant ever recorded in his backyard. He needed an official measure, Mr. Worth said, so “we went out and measured it and it turned out it was a record.”
There are the complaints too, plenty of them. Mr. Worth says he follows up on every one no matter how much of a wild goose chase it appears to be. “We respond because you never know,” he says.
As the price of gas has soared, have complaints about stations shorting customers increased?
”Yes,” says Mr. Worth.
Is he finding more infractions than usual?
”No,” he says.
”In an average year we may shut down maybe five (gas pumps), maybe 10, because there is a tolerance issue,” or a hose in need of repair, or even hard-to-read numerals, Mr. Worth said.
Gas stations are allowed to charge a different price for cash and credit, according to Mr. Worth, but must display the policy and price differences clearly, not misleading consumers by displaying only the lower price.
At the Valero station, Mr. Migliaccio gets the briefcase containing the octane analyzer. A small amount of high-test is placed in a clear cylinder and inserted in the device. A minute later a printout appears. “That’s it right,” Mr. Migliaccio says.
”There we go: 94.8,” says Mr. Worth, reading the octane result. Well above the 93 mandated minimum octane for premium gas. The octane analysis test is not required by the state, but is conducted anyway by Mercer County.
Done with the pumps, Mr. Migliaccio and Mr. Jauss test the station’s main storage tanks for any water accumulation in the gas (none is found). If a station has an air pump they will even check that to verify that for your 50 cents you really get the air pressure you paid for.
After backing the pickup to the main tanks, the accumulation of gas from the pumps is drained back into them. Next stop is another West Windsor Valero, at Princeton-Hightstown Road and Alexander Road.
Mr. Worth and his staff have never encountered pumps that were purposely rigged to ring up sales but didn’t actually dispense gas and considers tales of such scams to be urban legend.
”If someone was that smart they wouldn’t be pumping gas, they’d be working in Silicon Valley,” he says.
Then again, given the price of gas these days, you never know.
”Anything’s possible especially when there’s money involved,” Mr. Worth says.
