LITTLE ROCK — Little Rock is one of six entities vying for a state grant to build a compressed-natural-gas station to service its small fleet as well as the public.
If successful, the capital city would be following in the footsteps of North Little Rock, which opened a similar station in August. North Little Rock was the first public entity in the state to open such a station, with private companies opening their own compressed-natural-gas stations in Damascus and Fort Smith earlier this year.
“It’s something that seems that the public is interested in as far as a future option. So while these dollars were available, we thought we’d put in our application and determine the viability,” Little Rock City Manager Bruce Moore said about why the city is interested in building its own station.
“I think it is important that we are proactive and are looking at alternative fuel sources going forward,” he said.
Although Little Rock won’t find out until the end of the year whether it’s successful in winning a grant from the Arkansas Energy Office, Moore included funding for the city’s match in the proposed 2012 budget.
The $158.6 million budget includes four times the amount of funding for grant matches next year than it did this year.
Along with the $114,695 grant for the filling station for which Little Rock would need to provide matching funds, the capital city would set aside $500,000 as a match for a federal grant it recently applied for that seeks financial help to complete the Arkansas River Trail. Overall, the city expects to have $891,409 on hand for possible grant matches next year.
At the moment, Little Rock’s Fleet Services department has only two compressed-natural-gas vehicles and uses a slow compressednatural-gas pump to fill up.
“It will take you all day and all night to fill up our trolley once we get empty, versus a fast-fill station,” said Wendell Jones, the city’s Fleet Services director. “That’s one of the reasons we have not purchased CNG vehicles, more than what we have, because we’re not able to fill those things in a fashionable time.”
The station the city hopes to build with the grant would have more pressurized pumps that could fill the trolley tank in up to six minutes, Jones said.
The trolley is used occasionally, mostly to take city officials on neighborhood tours, Jones said. The other vehicle is a Ford Crown Victoria that Jones’ department uses day to day.
Little Rock would consider adding more compressed-natural-gas vehicles to the city’s fleet if it receives the grant from the Arkansas Energy Office, Moore said.
The state department has dedicated $470,000 to develop the new type of filling stations throughout the state, with its website touting compressed natural gas as helping reduce the state’s dependency on foreign oil while also being a cheaper and cleaner fuel.
However, the number of privately owned compressed natural-gas vehicles existing in central Arkansas is unknown.
Receiving the grant would require the winning city to open it up to the public. That would mean putting a station at a location easily accessible to the public. Jones said a location for the station in Little Rock hasn’t been identified yet.
North Little Rock’s station, which sells the gas at an equivalent of $1.44 per gallon, is less than two blocks west of Interstate 30 at Curtis Sykes Drive and Olive Street.
“People love the opportunity to have another choice in our city with gas prices the way they are,” said Nathan Hamilton, North Little Rock’s special projects director.
Along with gas company fleets, Hamilton has noticed people from surrounding rural areas filling up at the city’s station because it’s faster than some of their private pumps.
North Little Rock recorded 315 fill-ups by noncity vehicles since the first of September, Hamilton said.
The city, which also received a grant toward the station’s $725,469 construction cost, converted two garbage trucks and a trash “brush” truck from diesel to natural gas while waiting to open the filling station.
“As a city we’re just trying to offer our residents ... another choice, so we’re not in it to make a profit,” Hamilton said.
Arkansas, Pages 12 on 11/30/2011