Editor, Times-Union: There is ethanol in your gasoline and you didn’t know it. State Senator Ryan Mishler’s office recently confirmed that Indiana gas stations do not have to tell their customers there is ethanol in the gasoline they are buying. Some 33 states require labeling for ethanol, but Indiana is not one of them. It would seem to me to be bad government when use of a substandard product is mandated either by law or by false pretense – the sale of ethanol in gasoline with no labeling for consumers. And the move is on nationwide to increase the amount of ethanol in our gasoline. I oppose gasoline containing ethanol being sold without my knowing what I am buying. Common sense tells one that ethanol is neither economically viable or wise to convert our food to fuel. Ethanol produced from corn causes higher food prices. How could it not, when about 40 percent of America’s corn crop is being used by ethanol producers. Higher demand brings higher prices. Ethanol reduces vehicle fuel economy and damages older automobile engines. Ethanol has not reduced our dependence on foreign oil, slogans or no slogans. If your vehicle says flex fuel, that is a euphemism for how to lower your mileage while following brilliant government solutions to our energy issues. Our outboard boat engine manual says to avoid the use of gasolines containing ethanol because it is a solvent which reacts with fuel tanks, fuel filters, rubber and plastic parts which increases corrosion and causes operating problems. Ethanol also interacts with water from condensation that commonly gathers in a partially full fuel tank, which creates a clogging sludge that is also problematic for fuel filters, carburetors and other engine parts. The European Union has recently asked America to stop using corn to make ethanol because of possible food shortages in the world. Seems like a reasonable request to me. The website www.pure-gas.org currently lists 39 gas stations in Indiana that sell gasoline without ethanol. The nearest to Warsaw is Nappanee. Please call your state legislators about requiring disclosure of ethanol added at the pump, and also tell the station where you fill up that you want to be able to choose gasoline without ethanol. Purdue University has demonstrated that ethanol made from switch grass is economically viable and a crop American farmers can grow. But I still want a choice whether or not to buy fuel with ethanol added. D.J. Wagner Pierceton, via e-mail
