SALT LAKE CITY — Ashton Chilcote loves Lake Powell.
He’s been going there since 2005. He owns a share of a houseboat.
“In a week, we usually use between 300 to 400 gallons of fuel,” he said.
That means dimes worth of gas can add up to hundreds of dollars a season. Twice in the last three summers, the National Park Service and its biggest concessionaire at Lake Powell have reduced fuel prices after inquiries from Chilcote.
The second time, a FOX 13 News inquiry appears to have spurred the price cut, too.
Big Lake, Big Bill
Boaters on Lake Powell pay a lot more for fuel than motorists on dry land. When Chilcote talked to FOX 13 in mid-June, gasoline cost $6.53 a gallon at Wahweap Marina, along the Utah-Arizona line. At Bullfrog Marina, Lake Powell’s north shore, it was $6.73.
“It's either you bring your own fuel down with you in 5-gallon cans,” Chilcote said, “you put it in your boat, or you go to the marina to do it.”
Those marinas are operated by Philadelphia-based Aramark. As FOX 13 investigators reported in May, it’s had the major marina contracts at Lake Powell since 1989, when it bought the company holding the contracts.
The National Park Service has never placed the contracts out for bid. Instead, it keeps giving Aramark a one-year extension.
WATCH: At Lake Powell, families pay millions to contractor that hasn’t had to bid in decades
The Park Service, which oversees Lake Powell as part of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, regulates what Aramark can charge. The formula includes the retail price for fuel – what anyone might pay if they filled up at a land-based gas station – and what other lakes across the American West charge.
The Park Service walked Chilcote through its pricing when he inquired in 2023, according to emails reviewed by FOX 13.
“After I worked through that direct comparability method with them,” Chilcote told FOX 13, “it was determined and realized that Aramark had been overcharging significantly for the full 2023 season.”
The Park Service then reduced the price of gasoline by about 57 cents – down to $6.319 per gallon, according to a September 2023 email from the agency.
Low Octane
Chilcote ran the numbers again this spring.
He believed Lake Powell boaters were being overcharged by 47 cents per gallon of gasoline – at least. He says all but one of the lakes the Park Service uses in its comparison only offer higher-octane fuel than is found on Lake Powell.
“At about 47 cents a gallon, you're looking at a couple hundred bucks a week extra that we're paying on fuel,” Chilcote said.
On May 19, he sent an email to the Park Service with his calculations. He says the only response he received was an email telling him if he wanted additional information, he needed to file a Freedom of Information Act request.
FOX 13 asked the Park Service about the fuel prices, too. A spokeswoman declined interview requests, but said in an email, “Your inquiry highlighted some fuel rates being charged that needed correcting.”
Then, by June 21, Aramark had reduced its gasoline prices by 37 cents. It lowered diesel prices by almost twice that.
Chilcote thinks the gasoline price is still 10 cents higher than what the formula says it should be. He’s also concerned by a lack of communication from the park service.
“It appears that they're not doing anything. That they're just trying to hide and hope that these problems go away,” he said.
A Park Service administrator told FOX 13 in May that it is working on a new request for bids to operate the marinas at Lake Powell, but she didn’t know when they would be published. Last month, a
Park Service administrator told FOX 13 in an email that the agency is in “the process of reviewing the rate method used by concessioners.”
Aramark did not return FOX 13’s requests for comment.
WATCH: Buoys, toilets, fees — Lake Powell boaters frustrated with National Park Service
