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BEND, Ore. (AP) — When the cashier weighs apples at the grocery store or the attendant pumps gas at the station, most customers probably don't think twice about whether those measurements are accurate.
Customers are most likely paying the right amount for what they get, though, because the state checks those scales and pumps regularly. The Oregon Department of Agriculture has a team of 18 Weights and Measures Program inspectors who visit every store or business with licensed scales.
The Central Oregon inspector, 50-year-old Mike Rossetto, covers Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties, as well as the top of Klamath and Lake counties. The regulatory visits are unannounced, similar to how health inspectors visit restaurants.
The difference may be that business owners and managers generally aren't nervous to see Rossetto coming.
That's because he helps prevent businesses from losing money by accidentally giving away too much product, something he sees more often than customers paying too much. As scales wear down over time, they tend to read a lighter weight than they should, hurting the business, not the customer, he said.
The department's goal is to protect both businesses and customers by keeping the scales accurate.
During a routine check at the Chevron gas station on NW College Way last week, Rossetto explained how the program may often go unnoticed.
"A lot of people don't actually realize it," said Rossetto. "But we're kind of the mediators."
With his four-wheel drive truck as his office and a trailer in tow to collect gas, Rossetto explained his first task is to test the underground storage to make sure there's little or no water present in the gas. Unlocking the lid to the storage tank, Rossetto stuck a pole a few feet into the ground like a giant dipstick. He has a special paste he rubs on the pole to test if there's water in the gas. When he pulled out the stick, the paste remained white: a good sign, he said. Had there been water, the paste would have turned bright purple.
Rossetto then checked that each nozzle pumped each kind of gas at the correct rate: no more than 20 gallons per minute. Rossetto does this by hooking the nozzle into a 5-gallon prover, a tank that measures the gas in cubic inches, on his trailer. He has a prover for unleaded regular gas, midgrade and premium. After he sees each nozzle is pumping at the right rate for what customers are paying, Rossetto also must check octane levels in the gas with a special device, about the size of a loaf of bread, which costs around $13,000.
When he finished testing all the pumps, Rossetto said he would put the gas back in the storage tanks underground.
Although the work is technical — even scientific and mathematical — that part doesn't bother him.
Still, he's not one to admit he was a science or math whiz as a student. When asked if he enjoyed those subjects in school, he laughed and said, "no comment."
He said he's glad to be working in Central Oregon, where businesses are quick to comply. If there is a problem, it's most often that a device just needs maintenance work, not that it was tampered with.
When he's out on the job, especially at gas stations or in grocery stores, Rossetto said people often ask him what he's doing.
In his cotton jumpsuit and Oregon Department of Weights and Measures baseball cap, Rossetto answers with a quick line.
"I say, 'I'm just making sure you're getting a gallon and you're paying for a gallon,'" said Rossetto, or likewise that, "'You're getting a pound of roast beef and you're paying for a pound of roast beef.' . A lot of people, when you explain what you're doing, they're pretty thankful for it."
Questions from people about his work don't bother him; as the lone Central Oregon inspector, his days are filled with a fair dose of solitude.
Almost the only time he sees co-workers is once a year at a weeklong spring training that updates the inspectors on new practices and equipment. The 2015 training will take place this week in Bend.
Even though there is a lot of protocol to follow, including safety measures, Rossetto said the job isn't stressful. The most worrisome aspect, he says, is getting all 2,500 scales checked in his jurisdiction within the year. There are about 57,000 in the state.
This time of year, he visits retail gas stations; beginning in May and through the summer, he checks heavy scales that can weigh products from 5,000 to 200,000 pounds for things like livestock and trucks. Also in the summer, he visits farmers markets and fruit stands. In the fall, he looks at propane meters, and, in early winter, he visits grocery stores and medical marijuana dispensaries to check if scales are reading accurately. A large store such as Fred Meyer or Wal-Mart generally has around 40 scales; a medical marijuana dispensary usually has one or two. By January, he looks at bulk meters, like for gas at airports.
If any devices are not accurate, Rossetto adheres a red or blue tag. A red tag usually means the device is overcharging customers and cannot be used until it's fixed; a blue tag means the device is reading lower than it should. Blue-tagged devices can be used until they are fixed if the business doesn't mind losing some money.
Customers might notice some scales are for estimating purposes only, like in the produce section of a grocery store. Those have a blue sticker on them from the state explaining the scales aren't necessarily as accurate as the ones at the register. Rossetto places a sticker with his name and the date on every gas station pump he checks.
With all of the different places people come into contact with the devices he checks, Rossetto said he feels like he's doing a public service.
"I'm making sure they're getting what they pay for."
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Information from: The Bulletin, http://www.bendbulletin.com
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