Sunday, June 15, 2008
News

High gas prices spawn siphoning

If someone parks a truck at night and they had three quarters of a tank and the next morning they have a half, they might blow it off...

By Mark Woolsey

   All it requires is a hose, a bucket, and a little knowledge of physics, and you’re in business. Siphoning someone else’s bought-and-paid-for gas is a crime that may be older than the Model A, but as gas prices have surged past the $4-a-gallon mark, it’s made a comeback.

     In March, there was the Minnesota man with an elaborate homemade system that allowed him to siphon five gallons of gas in two minutes, 28 seconds by simply hooking up a hose to another car and hitting a switch. Earlier this month in Louisiana, a moving company had its fleet of trucks hit by siphoners three nights in a row. And locally, in mid-April, there was a gang of several men caught red-handed with siphoning gear at a Marietta apartment complex, says Marietta Police Spokesman Mark Bishop.

     “We had a resident of the complex look out into the parking lot, and he thought these guys were breaking into cars. Officers arrived and confronted them, and a foot chase ensued. One of the suspects had to be Tasered,” he says.

      Overall, though, a check with metro police agencies including Atlanta, Cobb, Gwinnett, Dekalb, Marietta and Sandy Springs shows no widespread problem so far. “This is only the second siphoning case I’ve seen in 16 years,” says Bishop, who adds that with prices trending upward, “I would have thought we’d be getting killed with these kinds of calls.”

      But he and other law enforcers worry that, with drivers being forced to fork over more and more at the pump, a crime that’s now like a thin trickle across the pavement could turn into the equivalent of a full-bore gusher.

     It’s an offense that leaves few, if any, physical signs—unlike a ripped-off  stereo or radar detector—unless police confiscate a device. And it can be done quickly and furtively with store-bought siphons intended for legitimate purposes; makers of one such contraption, the Simple Siphon, boast that it can transfer 3.5 gallons of liquid a minute using a hose and self-priming pump. A quick Google search turns up many such items for sale, plus a swath of how-to articles. Law enforcers report that suspected siphoning has become a topic at neighborhood-watch forums, but some folks who have had gas stolen from their tanks may not even realize it.

“If someone parks a truck at night and they had three quarters of a tank and the next morning they have a half, they might blow it off, thinking that they had driven that much,” says Cobb County Police spokesman Dana Pierce. He says his agency has received less than one report each week on average.

    Atlanta Police spokesman Ron Campbell says his agency has gotten “a couple of calls,” but agrees that it’s a hard problem to get a handle on, because  “sometimes, folks might just think there’s something wrong with their tank.”

     Stealing from fleets of service vehicles seems to represent the more low-hanging fruit. Much bigger gas tanks, groups of such vehicles parked together in close proximity, frequently unmonitored at night—all of this makes fleets  inviting targets for siphoners.

     Danny Bragg, manager of a NAPA Auto Parts store on Fulton Industrial Boulevard, says about a year ago gas was thieved from his company’s fleet vehicles by someone using siphoning’s cruder cousin—punching a hole in the bottom of the gas tank and draining the liquid gold into a bucket. NAPA beefed up security measures in the wake of the incident.

      In-store, Bragg says, he’s seeing a modest increase in sales of locking gas caps, as are other auto parts sales people. The design of many newer cars and trucks also offers some protection against gas-suckers. Some use a system of baffles and spring-loaded flapper valves to make it difficult for thieves to access the tank. And many newer vehicles come with locking gas doors—hence, the cruder, and much more expensive, punch-a-hole approach. Eric Cassidy, another NAPA manager, says he’s heard of “about six to 10” such cases so far. And that can be expensive. A service manager at Jim Ellis Chevrolet says replacing a tank runs from $400 to $800.

Thieves may pay with their lungs

      It may be a quick hit-and-run crime that leaves little physical evidence, but for those who use the old siphoning method of sucking the gas into a tube and dumping it in a bucket (even if it’s for the entirely legitimate purpose of taking fuel from a leaf blower and putting it into a lawnmower, for example), there are dangerous health risks, says Gaylord Lopez, director of the Georgia Poison Control Center.

     Because of the low viscosity of gas, he says, “The main danger you worry about is gas being spread throughout the lungs and inducing a chemical pneumonia,” causing acute lung damage.

      Lopez doesn’t know how much siphoning—legal or not—might be to blame, but he says the Poison Center received 1,700 calls for gasoline ingestion in 2007. Fortunately, he says, no deaths have been reported in any of those cases.

    With gas prices increasing, he says, “we will be looking at trends over the next few months to see if we notice any spikes.” But so far, calls in 2008 are coming in at a slower pace—some 500 through early June.

    Local law enforcement will also be watching for spikes, and hoping that vigilant citizens help them out.

    Marietta P.D.’s Bishop, who thinks the desperate unemployed and people who are already career criminals will increasingly turn to siphoning, says the best prevention is buying one of the key-entry gas caps.

     Other than that, “just be aware of your surroundings,” he says. “If you see something suspicious, call 911 and we’ll check it out.”

     If caught, he says, the wrongdoers face up to a year in jail and/or a fine. SP