CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) - A national survey of gas prices reports that the average cost of U.S. regular grade gas dropped 13 cents per gallon in the last two weeks.
Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday that the average for regular grade gas is $2.94 per gallon, while midgrade averages $3.18 and premium $3.34. Retail diesel averages $3.64.
Lundberg said the price has dropped 78 cents per gallon since its peak in May.
She said the drop has been driven by a decrease in the price of crude oil. She forecasts that will come to an end now unless oil prices drop further.
In the Lower 48 states, San Francisco had the highest average price at $3.27 per gallon, while Memphis, Tennessee, had the lowest average at $2.65.
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ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) - Federal officials say two minor earthquakes this weekend have shaken areas in the North Carolina mountains and east Tennessee.
The United State Geological Survey website says an earthquake in North Carolina around 8:30 Saturday night was a 2.4 on the Richter scale. It was centered about 7 miles north of Mars Hill and 22 miles north of Asheville.
The earthquake in North Carolina could be felt in the Wolf Laurel area, but the Madison County Sheriff’s office says no damage was reported.
To the west, a separate earthquake earlier Saturday shook an area about six miles north of Grimsley, Tennessee in Fentress County. It was 2.5 on the Richter scale.
Don Blakeman, a geophysicist with the National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado tells The Asheville Citizen-Times (https://avlne.ws/10HO365) that it usually takes an earthquake of around 5.0 magnitude to damage buildings and infrastructure.
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NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says delays of barge traffic have run about 10 hours since the Corps began closing a three-mile stretch of the Mississippi River from dawn to dusk to reinforce a section of river bank between Memphis, Tennessee and Greenville, Mississippi.
The Corps said backups of barge traffic that occurred during the first days of the closure were cleared overnight Friday and Saturday. The Corps also said Sunday it has agreed to delay repair work each morning if necessary to accommodate tows that don’t clear the work area overnight.
“If for some reason the queue has not cleared by daylight, we will postpone beginning our revetment work until all of the vessels are thru this section of the river,” Maj. Gen. Michael Wehr, Commander of the Mississippi Valley Division, said in a news release.
Still, Waterways Council spokesman Mike Toohey says the delays are costly. He estimated the cost of the first day of delays for shippers was more than $450,000, based on daily and hourly rates charged by barge and towboat companies.
He said future costs of the current project, estimated to last two weeks, are uncertain because the volume of future traffic is unknown.
Toohey said Sunday the Corps and those affected by the delays are discussing the situation daily.
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