Gas Leak In Alabama Is Having An Impact In Mississippi

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)-As the leak in Birmingham, Alabama,  continues to cause major problems for some gas stations all around the Southeast, many are speculating on the effects, long-term and short-term.

Many of the states being impacted by the leak are experiencing an increase in gas prices and struggling to find gas.  However, as of now, that doesn’t seem to be a problem in Mississippi.

“I don’t see that happening right now, I think we’re a ways from that,” said John Fair, president of Fair Oil Company.

In fact, Fair said the Magnolia state is actually in better shape opposed to the other states that’s being effected.

“When the leak occurred, actually, we were at a pretty good shape with our suppliers at all of our terminals,” said fair. “What made east of is a little more problematic is the population density is larger.”

However residents and businesses here are still being impacted, nonetheless.

“It’s a transportation problem of trying to get that fuel where it’s needed,” said Fair. “We’re not getting any shipments into each of our major terminals which are in Collins, Mississippi, and Meridian, Mississippi.”

Fair Oil Company takes its gasoline from Meridian, Mississippi, much like stations in other North Mississippi, cities.

But now, due to the gas leak they’ll have to travel farther to get their supply.

“We’re driving our trucks now to Greenville,” Fair explained. “We can normally pick up 3 loads per truck in meridian, and now we can only do one out of Greenville.”

And the gas leak is also causing a shortage of diesel in the Magnolia state.

“There are two lines, one is a gasoline line and the other is a diesel line on the colonial,” said Fair. “Well they have taken, what’s called the diesel line,and they’ve started shifting and shipping gasoline on line two so it’s caused the diesel to be in a little bit of a short supply.”

As of now, Fair said gasoline prices have not gone up, so customers don’t have to get in a panic mode and rush to buy gas.

Fair also said he expects this gas leak to be fixed by the end of the week.