Gasoline

Hanover Street between McComas Street and Brooklyn was closed overnight while crews worked to remove about 8,900 gallons of gasoline that spilled into the Patapsco River when a tanker truck overturned about 5 p.m. yesterday on an on-ramp to southbound Interstate 95.Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres of the Baltimore Fire Department said firefighters and crews from the Maryland Department of the Environment were cleaning up the spill.Witnesses told police the tanker, owned by Dana Transportation, whose address was not available, was rocking back and forth on the ramp from northbound Hanover Street before it overturned near the top of the ramp and landed on its right side against a wall.

A 14-year-old Columbia boy was arrested and charged with carrying homemade bombs, a pellet gun and a knife in Harper's Choice yesterday, police said.About 3: 20 a.m., police said, the youth was walking along Cedar Lane near Grand Banks Road when he was spotted carrying the devices by a police officer on routine patrol.Officer Emily Hurley stopped the boy and found four beer bottles -- believed to be filled with gasoline -- that were taped together, police said. Each had a wick, police said.

In Baltimore CityTanker truck hauling gasoline overturns; 1,500 gallons leakA tanker truck carrying 8,900 gallons of gasoline overturned about 5 p.m. yesterday on a ramp leading to southbound Interstate 95 from Hanover Street in South Baltimore, forcing authorities to detour evening rush-hour traffic on both sides of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge for several hours.Fire Department Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres said about 1,500 gallons of gasoline leaked into a storm drain and then a drainage ditch under the ramp.

A gasoline tanker rig flipped over as it made a sharp turn in the Wagner's Point industrial area early yesterday, spilling thousands of gallons of fuel onto the street and into a sewer drain that empties into Curtis Bay.The spill did not trigger evacuations, but two major roads feeding the area were closed for much of the day, keeping hundreds of areaworkers from reaching or leaving their jobs and cutting off Wagner's Point residents.The accident occurred when the 40-foot-long gasoline rig driven by Frank Daniel Dixon III took a hard turn from Fairfield Road onto Patapsco Avenue at 1: 45 a.m. The rig went out of control, slammed into a curb and rolled, stopping upside down against a utility pole, said Sgt. Scott Rowe, city police spokesman.

A gasoline tanker rig lies on Fairfield Avenue after it overturned making a sharp turn in Wagner's Point. The accident caused thousands of gallons of fuel to spill onto the street and into a nearby sewer drain yesterday morning. Two major roads were closed, preventing many from reaching or leaving their jobs and cutting off Wagner's Point residents. (Article, Page 3B)

LOS ANGELES -- Ira J. Feldman finished filling his Mazda with gasoline, eyed the readout on the pump and raised his hands, arms wide, as if to say, "You've got to be kidding." At $1.59 a gallon, he had just paid $21.56 for 13 gallons of gas."What a joke," Feldman, a 51-year-old home restorer, said. "What's the excuse? They're telling us there's a war? The chairman of the board had a bad meal last night? I don't get it."Although gasoline prices around the country have increased over the past several months, in part because of announced cuts in worldwide oil production, prices in California have soared the most, with the sharpest increases in the past two weeks.

For Timonium housewife Pam Baker -- who car pools four times each day -- it's more money to spend on groceries.For Andy Hoeckel, a 24-year-old carpet installer who logs 500 miles weekly to jobs in Philadelphia and Washington, it's lower expenses.And for commuter Mary Sue Orfuss, the gasoline glut that has pushed prices as low as 69.9 cents a gallon is sweet "comeuppance" for the oil companies."I love the low prices," Orfuss says, while filling up at a Petro discount service station on York Road in Timonium, where fuel is selling for 89.9 cents a gallon.

25 years ago:"With Congress getting its back up at last over the energy crisis, oil companies are being forced to reveal that their storage tanks are overflowing and that they actually have more gasoline on hand than at this time last year. Yet, through a foolish and totally unfathomable policy of the energy administration, gasoline stations are being denied the amounts of gasoline that customers need. to carry out their normal operations of travel, many times with serious implications to their work and their means of earning a livelihood.

Investigators will continue searching today for the cause of a fire that nearly destroyed an apartment building in downtown Taneytown early Saturday and left 23 people homeless, authorities said.Yesterday, the state fire marshal's office interviewed the 15 residents who were in the three-story frame building at 40 E. Baltimore St. when the fire began, said W. Faron Taylor, deputy state fire marshal.Police dog units were taken to the scene to search for accelerants -- such as gasoline -- that might have started the fire, he said.

Fears of an explosion emptied homes, shuttered stores and closed busy roads yesterday after 4,000 gallons of gasoline spilled underground at an Amoco station near a bustling intersection east of Towson.Roads around Loch Raven Boulevard and Taylor Avenue were cordoned off until late afternoon, and dozens of residents were evacuated to a nearby high school while firefighters flushed miles of storm drains to clear the vapors. Businesses in three of the intersection's shopping centers closed for much of the day."

City officials say an unusually high concentration of ethanol in the city's gasoline supply contributed to the breakdown of more than 70 police cars over the weekend, most of which had been repaired and returned to service Tuesday. More than 200 police cars fueled up at a 24-hour, city-run gas pump by the Fallsway before cars started showing problems, and nearly one-third of the Police Department's patrol contingent was sidelined with engine trouble. Police doubled up in cars before activating a reserve and shifting administrative vehicles into service.

General Motors Co. said Tuesday that its long-awaited Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid is expected to achieve fuel economy of 230 miles per gallon in city driving. That would give the Volt, which is expected to arrive in showrooms late next year, by far the highest fuel efficiency rating of any car rated by the Environmental Protection Agency. The current EPA mileage leader is the Toyota Prius hybrid, which is rated at 50 mpg in combined city-highway driving. The Volt is designed to run on electric power only for about 40 miles, after which a small gasoline engine kicks in to recharge the battery, giving it a range of more than 300 miles.

Don't let kids pump gas The front-page photo illustrating your story on rising gasoline prices on June 16 has a happy look: the 4-year old is helping mom pump the gas. It does illustrate, however, how so many people are unaware of the significant risks for children in such activity. This child is in a dangerous position. As a family physician, I am well aware of the problem of asthma and other respiratory issues in childhood. Gasoline emissions and fumes from refueling are a major contributor to our air pollution.

A man whose burned body was found in Leakin Park in late December had been beaten unconscious, wrapped in a blanket and doused in gasoline after angering members of a powerful gang at a Northwest Baltimore motel in December, according to police. With two arrests yesterday, four people - including three teenage girls - have now been arrested for their alleged roles in the crime, said Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman. According to a source with knowledge of the case, 20-year-old Petro Taylor had failed to drop off $200 to a gang leader named "Sincere" who was being held at the Baltimore County Detention Center.

At the beginning of a closing statement that he predicted would last the better part of two days, a lawyer representing 300 plaintiffs who are suing ExxonMobil Corp. said yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court that their community was "forever changed" by a huge gasoline leak three years ago. The spill, at a service station in Jacksonville, dumped more than 26,000 gallons of regular unleaded gasoline into the groundwater that supplied the area's wells. The plaintiffs, who are seeking at least $1 billion from the oil giant, claim that their physical and emotional health had been damaged and their property values have been ruined.

A maintenance supervisor for Exxon Mobil Corp. said yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court that he did not know how to operate a device that should have prevented a massive gasoline leak three years ago at a service station in Jacksonville. The underground leak dumped more than 26,000 gallons of regular unleaded gasoline into the groundwater that supplied the area's wells and ruined property values for some 300 homeowners, who are seeking at least $1 billion from the oil giant. The trial began in October, and the plaintiffs are still presenting their case to the jury.

Tumbling gasoline prices gave consumers more purchasing power last month, which led to a rise in real consumer spending even as personal income slips and Americans worry about their jobs in a rapidly weakening economy. The Commerce Department reported yesterday that consumer spending, when adjusted for inflation, rose 0.6 percent in November, its largest gain in two years. The increase followed a 0.5 percent decline in October. And while the unadjusted rate of consumer spending declined 0.6 percent in November, on the heels of a 1 percent drop in October, economists suggested that the relative increase in spending was a rare piece of good news for the faltering economy.

After nearly two years of negotiation with Amtrak, the Maryland Transit Administration happily added evening MARC commuter train service between Baltimore and Washington one year ago. With high gasoline prices, the rail line had lured record numbers of new customers, and the expansion offered two additional round-trips' worth of relief to standing-room-only crowds. This month, officials announced they will temporarily suspend the new service beginning in January - not from a lack of riders but from a lack of money.

An Iowa-based research center is looking for 450 Baltimore-area motorists willing to have their every driving move tracked by satellite to test a system that could theoretically replace the federal gasoline tax with road use fees. The federally funded study will use a global positioning system satellite to track not only the mileage driven over eight months, but also whether each road traveled is funded by the state, federal or local governments. Participants will receive a simulated bill each month for the road use fee owed to each level of government.

A throng of plaintiffs packed a Towson courtroom yesterday, overflowing into a hallway, to hear the lawyer they had hired make the case that their neighborhood was ruined and their health endangered by the leak from a gas station of thousands of gallons of gasoline. "This is a leak that should not have happened," Stephen L. Snyder, whose firm is representing 300 residents of Jacksonville, said in Baltimore County Circuit Court during opening statements in a trial in which the plaintiffs are collectively seeking $1 billion from Exxon Mobil Corp.