LITTLE ROCK — North Little Rock is ready to move forward with a $975,000 publicly accessible refueling station for vehicles run on compressed natural gas and begin converting the city fleet to the fuel, city officials said Wednesday.
Natural gas is abundant in the United States, and supporters of using compressed natural gas tout it as being less expensive to use and cleaner-burning, thus it produces fewer emissions.
“We’re moving ahead to the future,” Robert Voyles, North Little Rock’s community planning director, said Wednesday. “Natural gas is cleaner burning, a better fit for the environment and is a domestic fuel.”
North Little Rock plans to purchase four lots for the station, Mayor Patrick Hays said. The site is at the southwest corner of Curtis Sykes Drive and North Olive Street, about one block west of Interstate 30. The purchase will require City Council approval.
No legislation for the purchase is on Monday’s City Council agenda, but there’s still time to add it.
“My sense is there will be a groundbreaking within 30 days,” pending the council’s passage, said Michael Drake, North Little Rock’s Federal Stimulus Funds director.
The four lots would cost $30,000-$40,000, Hays said. Availability of the site is pushing the project forward, even though funding isn’t officially in hand, he said.
“That site is too good to pass up,” Hays said. “I didn’t want to lose that opportunity.”
The city has tentative commitments, Drake said, for grants of $300,000 from the state Agriculture Department, and $100,000 each from Chesapeake Energy and Southwestern Energy.
Those grants would cover $500,000 of the $975,026 construction cost, leaving the city’s share at $475,000, he said.
The council agreed in April to issue $7 million in bonds. That includes an uncommitted $195,000 for “unspecified special projects.” Legislation has already been filed for Monday’s meeting to pledge city matching funds of $3.08 million toward replacing the Main Street viaduct and $3.3 million for a railroad overpass near Fairfax Drive and Roundtop Drive in the eastern part of the city.
The Public Building Authority, an independent city agency, would obtain the loan to pay for construction and would own the refueling station, Drake said, then lease it to the city. The city and the authority have a similar arrangement involving other properties, including Dickey-Stephens Park baseball stadium.
The station would serve the public and any government owned vehicles running on compressed natural gas, Hays said.
“We’ll be the first one for public use in central Arkansas,” Hays said of the compressed natural-gas station. Little Rock National Airport, Adams Field, has such a station for its own vehicles, but it’s not open to the public.
There are houses on and near the proposed station site, though they are mostly vacant and have out-of-town owners, Drake said.
The area is zoned for commercial use, Voyles said.
“I have made connections with neighborhood groups, and no one has raised any objection at that location,” he said.
No public hearing is required in regard to the lots, Voyles said, because the site is properly zoned for commercial use, which would include use as a compressed-natural-gas station or a regular gas station.
A year ago, Hays pushed for North Little Rock-based Central Arkansas Transit Authority to order a few compressed-natural gas buses to begin converting the bus fleet and other vehicles. To do that, CATA would have had to agree to build a compressed natural-gas fueling station for $1.7 million, using capital bonds to pay off its initial loan.
After three months of study, the CATA board rejected Hays’ plea in an 8-3 vote, citing the upfront costs and the national economic recession already straining government budgets. The agency now has diesel buses ordered through 2013.
Voyles said the city is taking the initiative to be a leader in changing the way local governments operate.
“It’s better for engines, and it burns cleaner than what we’re doing now,” Voyles said of compressed natural gas. “But we’re used to a liquid-type fuel even though we’re buying it from Saudi Arabia and other foreign places. The price is better for the fuel, but people don’t like change.”
North Little Rock will start its conversion of city vehicles to compressed natural gas with three garbage trucks, Drake said, and plans to buy “pickup trucks and things like that” to run on compressed natural gas for other city departments by late this year.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 06/10/2010