Tuktoyaktuk (Apr 22/05) - Gassing up their vehicles didn't get Tuk motorists as far as it should have last week.

"We had a major disaster here," said Merven Gruben of E. Gruben's Transport Ltd., which owns the gas station in the community.

An undisclosed amount of diesel was poured in the station's gas holding tanks and an unknown quantity of gas was also poured into the diesel tanks.

The mix-up literally stopped cars, trucks and snowmobiles in their tracks.

"There were probably 12-20 vehicles affected," said Gruben, noting an equal amount of snowmachines and trucks were afflicted.

Most are now back on the road, he said, but a few are still not running.

The station, which shut down all sales except diesel Thursday, reopened the gas pumps Saturday after a new tanker-load arrived from Inuvik.

The contaminated gas has been replaced and motorists affected by the problem can fill out a claims form with the company for any damages done, according to Gruben.

"We just collected all the bad gas and refilled them with the new gas," said Gruben. "Now everyone is happy."

The gas supplier, who ordered the petroleum products from Whitehorse and figures the contamination occurred when the driver transferred the fuel to its tanks, said he won't be out of pocket for the costs.

"The insurance from the supplier should cover it," said Gruben, who couldn't comment on the dollar value of the gas wasted, but said it was definitely not in the half-million-dollar range as had been rumoured.

Some diesel fuel in a tank of gas is not too severe a problem but it can be a nightmare the other way around, said Vince MacCarthy, vice president of Mackenzie Valley Construction.

Diesel is heavier than gas, so the gas will float on top of it, he explained, adding that motorists can make the repairs themselves or visit a mechanic to have things cleaned up properly.

"It would probably cost a couple of hundred bucks," MacCarthy said of the two-hour job.

"It's not that big of a deal, though. We had that happen here and it didn't really affect anyone."