{"id":569558,"date":"2026-04-07T10:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/569558\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T10:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:06:08","slug":"fuel-prices-are-rising-across-the-united-states-hanover-is-no-exception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/569558\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuel prices are rising across the United States. Hanover is no exception."},"content":{"rendered":"

Fuel prices in New Hampshire are climbing as the Iran war continues to disrupt energy markets. The average price of a gallon of gasoline across New Hampshire was $3.92 on Monday, slightly below<\/a> the national average of $4.11 \u2014 but both national and state prices are the highest<\/a> they have been since August 2022.<\/p>\n

Hanover public works director Peter Kulbacki said publicly-funded operations will be unaffected by rising costs until next year because the town enters \u201clonger term pre-buy contracts\u201d for the fuel that powers town vehicles and facilities.<\/p>\n

However, if fuel prices remain high when a new fuel contract is negotiated \u2014 before the town meeting in May 2027 \u2014 the town could see a \u201cbig bump in our budget to cover these costs,\u201d potentially causing increases in user fees for town services such as water and trash collection. Kulbacki said that no potential fee increases would take effect until fiscal year 2028, which begins on July 1, 2027.<\/p>\n

School Administrative Unit 70, the school district serving Hanover and Norwich, also will not be affected by higher fuel costs until the next fiscal year. In an email statement to The Dartmouth, SAU 70 facilities director Anthony Daigle wrote that recent price increases \u201cwill affect our heating fuel contract for fiscal year 2027,\u201d which begins on July 1, 2026. In addition, he wrote, \u201cshipping costs to bring supplies in\u201d are more uncertain than usual.<\/p>\n

Other supplies \u2014\u00a0such as road salt<\/a> and waste water treatment inputs \u2014 may see price increases that are difficult to predict, which may force the Department of Public Works to \u201cmove things around\u201d in their budget this year. For instance, while the Department often stockpiles sand and gravel for road work, they \u201cmay hold off on purchasing it so we make sure we have enough funds to cover increases in other areas,\u201d Kulbacki said.<\/p>\n

Advance Transit \u2014 the nonprofit that runs a free bus service in the Upper Valley\u00a0\u2014 will be able to weather the increase in fuel prices because fuel makes up only \u201cabout five percent of total expenses,\u201d Advanced Transit treasurer Giorgios Katsaros said in an interview with The Dartmouth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not something that is going to be outsized compared to [Advanced Transit\u2019s] overall budget or overall operating expenses,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Katsaros pointed to Advance Transit\u2019s experience with elevated fuel prices in 2022 and 2023, during the period of post-pandemic inflation. Advanced Transit does \u201cnot see any impact on the level of service that Advanced Transit is currently offering or is planning to offer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Like the Department of Public Works, Advanced Transit has an annual fuel contract with a supplier, which insulates them from short-term fluctuations in energy prices. Katsaros wrote in a follow-up email statement to The Dartmouth that Advanced Transit\u2019s budget may \u201cbe adversely impacted if such disruptions persist through the later part of the year, or beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lena Sealey-Nicotra \u201928 drives 25 minutes to her off-campus job and travels home to upstate New York a few times per term. She said that while the cost to fill up her tank has only increased by about $10 since last term, she still worries about higher gas prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been avoiding it all week because it was cheaper last term, and I just got here,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I\u2019m waiting until [my tank] can go as low as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crossroad Farms, which is located in Post Mills, Vt. and operates a seasonal farmstand in Norwich, similarly faces increasing fuel and transportation costs, owner and farm manager Phil Mason said. He anticipates raising prices this year, though only by a small amount.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t in good faith raise prices anything more than three to five percent in one season,\u201d he said. \u201cI just don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair to our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the farm uses regenerative agricultural techniques such as cover cropping, composting and growing more than 100 different crops, all of which reduce reliance on external inputs and \u201cdiversify\u201d the business. While diesel, fertilizer and propane \u2014 used to heat greenhouses \u2014 are significant costs, they are small compared to what a large industrial farm might face.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Agribusiness farms] are using so much synthetic fertilizer, so if the price of that goes up 20% that\u2019s a really big deal for them,\u201d Mason said. \u201cBut for us, our annual fertilizer bill is $4,000 \u2026 for that to go up 10 to 20% is not that big a deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Upper Valley is \u201cone of the best places to farm in the country, if not the world,\u201d Mason said. \u201cOur consumer base is passionate about supporting farms and willing to pay a premium for a crop that they know is grown sustainably and at a family farm.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fuel prices in New Hampshire are climbing as the Iran war continues to disrupt energy markets. The average…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-569558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}