Diesel prices reached $8.33.9 a gallon at the Flying J travel centers in Ripon and Lathrop on Tuesday.
The prices aren’t spooking Manteca’s solid waste division that operates 40 plus large trucks collecting the city’s garbage, recyclables, and organic/green waste.
In fact, Manteca is saving a bundle when it comes to diesel costs.
It’s because Manteca has its own refinery.
And they don’t have to worry about raw fuel supplies from the Middle East where the lion’s share of crude comes from to power vehicles, trucks, heavy equipment, jets and more in California.
The “crude” supply to Manteca’s refinery won’t be interrupted as long as the city’s 98,000 residents keep flushing.
The refinery is the city’s wastewater treatment plant.
And the crude is the No. 2 we flush down the toilet.
Manteca was among the first — if not the first — pioneer city in California to convert methane that is a byproduct in treating wastewater into biogas or compressed natural gas.
That gas is currently used at a fueling station not included in the count of existing locations or those already in the approval project when it comes to the city’s temporary moratorium on new gas station applications.
It’s at the was...