CIty Gives Up on CNG Plan

Nearly 10 years after the city of began to look into creating a compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station, the city's board of aldermen have agreed to abandon its plans.

The determination to move forward was made Wednesday at a board work session. After an official vote at the city's meeting this Wednesday, staff will be able to put the CNG equipment it owns on its excess inventory rolls and sell it. 

City officials heard a presentation from Scott Smith, director of . Smith was asked to give the board an in-depth look at the financial feasibility of the project following a work session on the subject in December.

Smith told the board Wednesday that it would take at least $170,000 to make the equipment owned by the city operational. Smith also provided the board figures on the conversion of existing city and police vehicles to CNG and a cost-analysis on running a CNG station.

"The price of gasoline directly impacts the financial feasibility of the project," Smith told the board. 

Smith said if gas prices rise to $5 or $6 a gallon, the CNG facility could be profitable in 10 years. If gas prices held steady at current rates, profitability would take longer.

At the December meeting, Clean Energy Fuel Inc., a California company owned by T. Boone Pickens, expressed interest in forming a public-private partnership with the city to build and operate the station.

But Smith's report did not include any guaranteed partners, meaning the city would take on the risk.

Alderman Cheryl Kross questioned the viability of the city's nine year old equipment. 

"What changes in the industry have occurred in the past nine years?" she asked. 

Kross also made it clear that she felt an operation like this should be a private enterprise and was not the role of city government.

Other aldermen were worried about being the only CNG fueling station in the area. The closest is at Lambert St. Louis International Airport.

"What happens if a pump goes down once our vehicles are converted," Alderman Leon Tow asked. "Let's say something like that happens in the winter, right before a snow storm and then half our vehicles are down. What is our alternative then?"

By a voice vote, five of the city's aldermen agreed to put the project's future on the agenda for this week's board meeting. Alderman Rick Stokes was not at the March 16 work session.

The project started in 2002. City officials began to look into a city-wide bus system that would run on GNC. The station would also complement the  plant's production of CNG-fueled vans – and possibly help attract GM's CNG assembly line.

But the fuel station was placed on hold after GM stopped making the vans and Teleflex, another company in the area interested in GNC, left town. By this time, the city had already purchased equipment for the station.

The equipment was held in storage by Bowgen Fuel Systems in Springfield, MO. The owner of the company died and the company was sold to a firm out of Indiana. That firm then went out of business. 

Since 2009, the city has been paying $500 a month rent on the storage facility.

The city already has invested $192,800 in fueling station equipment, which is stored in Springfield. Wentzville has $200,000 budgeted for the station in 2011.

Jim Daerda, of Alternative Fuel Systems in St. Louis, examined the city's equipment in Springfield and reported to the council in December. He said the city would need to spend about $100,000 more to purchase additional equipment to have a complete station. Shipping the equipment to Wentzville would cost an additional $8,000, he said.

If the project was approved, the station would have been at Luetkenhaus Boulevard (Old Highway 61) and Pearce on land owned by Ameren, which planned to lease the property to the city.