Bo-Gas served its last drops of petrol to a diesel truck last week before its owner, the Bolinas Community Land Trust, hung up the pump. The trust operated the station for 19 years before announcing the decision to close it at a community meeting in March. Rising costs and groundwater intrusion at the downtown site made keeping the station open infeasible. Water and air services will still be available for free. “Thank you to all those who have made the gas station possible over the past years,” wrote Annie O’Connor, the trust’s director, in the Bolinas Hearsay News last week. “Even though we will no longer sell fossil fuels, Bo-Gas will remain a treasured landmark for our community and 6 Wharf Road will continue to provide permanently affordable housing.” The station’s relatively high prices have allowed for up to $2 per gallon purchased to go toward the trust’s operating budget, but the business has run at a deficit for almost two years. Damages from storms since 2017 added to the problem. Mike Harrison, a consultant for an environmental consulting firm hired to remove the underground gas tank, said that although gas hadn’t escaped the tank and reached any soil, water had continuously made its way into the sump that holds the gas lines. “There’s a certain life that equipment buried in the ground exposed to water has and, in my opinion, this 23-year-old equipment was very close to the end of its service life,” he said. “During rains, groundwater gets very shallow in that area, and the older the equipment is, the more difficult it is to keep water out and product in.” The building at 6 Wharf Road was constructed in 1909 by Oliver Longley, a second-generation resident who established a blacksmith shop called the Bolinas Garage. Services ranged from repairing wagons that had taken a beating from traveling over the hill to fixing farm tools. By the 1920s, the shop started serving fuel through gravity-powered gas pumps. When the trust took over Bo-Gas in 2004 to turn the building into six units of affordable housing, founding member Don Deane approached one of its residents, Al B. Foreman, who was unemployed at the time after a stint at Smiley’s Schooner saloon. Mr. Deane asked Mr. Foreman to manage the station, and the latter has lived and worked there for almost two decades. Occasionally, he was awakened by patrons banging on his door at the wee hours for gas—a perk that he won’t miss. He said he is sad to see the gas station go but understands the decision. “No post office, no gas station—it’s kind of sad, really,” he said. “But there’s been a lot of electric cars recently and a few problems on the gas station end, so it might be time.” In honor of Mr. Foreman’s work, the trust is holding a celebration at the Bolinas Community Center on Sunday, Oct. 9 from 1 to 3 p.m.