Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Shop local also includes gas

Forget the vegetable oil, this local crude hits the mark
It’s been almost a year since I wrote a column on a particular brand of vehicle that particularly annoys me with it’s conspicuous consumption and lousy gas mileage. I won’t name names, except to say it rhymes with “Bummer,” and let’s just say I got a few angry letters to the editor over it.

But that’s ok. I don’t mind spurring some debate and I like to make people stop and think, and I also don’t mind for others to express their opinions. It’s good for ideas to be challenged and for new information to be put out there that maybe we didn’t realize before, so I appreciate hearing other points of view.

A few months after the Bummer story, which by the way, had a larger focus of sharing about “greasecars,” that is, cars that are converted to run on Waste Vegetable Oil, (awesome, and I found out there are several greasecar owners around here!) the disastrous Gulf oil spill occurred. I vacationed at the ocean around this time and wrote about how distressed I was about it and, again, got some disagreeing letters to the editor.

In a follow up article where I addressed some of those comments I also offered some proactive ideas—one of which was to buy gas at the CountryMark station on S. Allisonville. Why? Because CountryMark is Indiana’s only American owned oil refining company, using 100% American Crude Oil.

Ever since I learned this about CountryMark over a year or so ago, and I had never gone there previously, I have made every effort to only purchase gas at CountryMark—not only is it a local company but it’s Midwestern oil too, and that fits in perfectly with my ideals of shopping local and supporting local businesses whenever possible.

CountryMark has locations all over the Midwest, including one here in Noblesville. If you are traveling out of the area, check out www.countrymark.com for other locations.

2 comments:

  1. Informative article. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I thought Valero (located @ Rt 37 and Conner St) was also 100% american owned and used american crude. Curious to know whether this is true.

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  2. yes, i have heard the same about valero being american owned, but i don't think the source solely american crude. i believe they use both domestic and foreign oil, at least it seems so from here: http://www.valero.com/OurBusiness/Pages/RefiningOurBusiness.aspx

    great question.

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