IWAKUNI, Japan - With the summer months coming and bright, sunny weather on the horizon, families and friends will get together for barbecues and other outdoor activities, most of these likely including cooking of some sort.
Marine Corps Community Services Iwakuni supplies station residents with a chance to rent out propane tanks under a three-month contract, but more than half of the propane tanks are currently unaccounted for.
MCCS is currently offering a $10 MCCS gift card to anyone who providesaccountability for an unknown propane tank.
“We know a lot of people pass off their propane tanks to their neighbors when they leave the station,” said Gunnery Sgt. Daniel M. Jackson, MCCS Marine. “MCCS owns 256 tanks and when we initiated the gift card offer, we only had accountability for 112.
We’ve been trying to reach out to the community to ask them to help us out. There’s no harm if someone just comes in and lets us know they have a tank, just to help us update our records.”
While accountability is an important issue with the propane tanks, safety within the community is also a main priority.
“The propane tanks are good for five years,” said Jackson. “After that, they have to be recertified every year. We don’t want people using a tank if it hasn’t been checked to make sure it’s safe.”
With a limited supply of propane tanks, accountability is an important aspect in the continual supply of tanks to those who wish to rent one out.
“If we don’t have any propane tanks for rent because all the tanks are out, sitting in people’s yards, when they could be turned back in and refilled, then we can’t effectively supply the station with what they want or need,” said Jackson.
With the future of the air station looking much bigger in terms of personnel numbers, the purchasing of more propane tanks is a must. Without the proper accountability on the current number of tanks though, keeping track of more tanks would be an incredibly difficult situation.
Propane tanks are located in the Northside car rental parking lot and are easily accessible to anyone wanting to rent one out.
“All you have to do to rent a tank is go into the car rental and sign a propane tank agreement and they can use the propane tank,” said Jackson. “The contract is a 180-day agreement. However, if you don’t go through the entire propane tank, you can call in and renew the contract over the phone for another six months.”
With such a hassle-free process for renting out propane tanks, and a reward for providing accountability on those already out, there is unlikely to be any reason for a propane tank to sit, unused and neglected.