Bureaucracy, it can be a killer - for individuals, for families, for communities, for businesses.

It happened this week in Gravette when the Shop ‘n Go Station finally had to close its doors. It’s a long story, one that could and should have been rectified months ago. But it wasn’t to be.

It began last January when some gasoline spilled, apparently from one of the station’s above ground tanks. But was it ever proven the tanks had a leak? You remember. An area of downtown Gravette was cordoned off. Emergency/Hazmat people swarmed over the area. But within a few hours, the possible danger - if there ever was one - was eliminated.

And then the time of uncertainty began for the station owners.

We checked with them regularly to find out when they would be able to reopen. Months passed. There was more digging and testing and speculating as the “experts” grappled with what to do. Of course the station had immediately been shut down. But with all the fall-de-rall going on, it seemed a solution, an answer, would be forthcoming, relatively soon.

Sorry. Months passed - May, July - it was during late summer that more soil sampling began, and with it the hopes that the station would be given the word that it might again be able to sell gas to supplement the chicken strips, fried okra, candy bars, that they were able to sell - not enough to cover expenses, of course.

More months passed. Now it is October. Andsince a resolution may not be forthcoming until sometime next spring, it was inevitable the station would finally be forced to close.

So a business is gone. The bureaucracy continues to spin. And what was once a viable addition to Gravette’s community is no more.

Contrast a year and a half with the tragic spillage of thousands of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf which began in May. I would wager drilling will be allowed to resume within the next few weeks.

Sometimes the wheels spin differently. Maybe it’s the size of the spill that counts.

Postscript: Some things are just so expensive there seems to be no rationale for their necessity: Requiring Gravette’s 900 sewer customers to face the cost of a $6 million sewer treatment facility.

Dodie Evans was the longtime editor of the Gravette News Herald and is editor emeritus at the Westside Eagle Observer. He may be contacted at devans@ nwaonline.com.

Opinion, Pages 7 on 10/13/2010