County explores compressed natural gas facility

By FRITZ MAYER

MONTICELLO, NY — The county has come into possession of a couple of lots on East Broadway in Monticello during recent tax foreclosure proceedings, and it is offering the lots up to the state for no cost. In return, however, the county would like the state to build a compressed natural gas (CNG) filling station. The lots are located very close to where the new exit 106 on Route 17 will be located.

At a meeting at the government center on May 7, lawmaker Alan Sorensen said the NY Department of Transportation (DOT) has expressed interest in the idea and will pursue it.

The DOT has a fleet of more than 700 CNG automobiles, pickup trucks and vans. According to a press release from Sorensen and fellow lawmaker Ron Hiatt, more than 20 percent of DOT’s entire fleet is powered through CNG technology. And because of an executive order signed by former Governor George Pataki, 100 percent of all new vehicles purchased by state agencies after 2010 must be CNG or other alternative fuel vehicles, which means that the use of CNG technology will likely see a dramatic increase over the next five years.

At the moment, Sullivan is the only county in DOT Region Nine that does not have a CNG facility. There is one such facility on Sands Creek Road in Hancock, but that is open only to state vehicles. Around the state, there are 82 CNG DOT filling stations with many clustered around New York City, in Long Island and near Buffalo, with several of them open to the public.

The one in Monticello, as now envisioned, would be available to the public as well as the DOT, and also to county vehicles as the legislature moves to switch its fleet to alternative fuels in the coming years. Also, because of its proximity to the landfill, which will generate burnable gases for decades to come even if it is closed and not expanded, there is some possibility that gas mined from the landfill could be used at the CNG facility.

The CNG station, however, would not be dependent on gas coming from the Millennium Pipeline, because, initially, the gas would be brought in by tanker trucks.