The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
County CNG program still moving forward
By Alissa Johnson
The Gunnison Valley Rural Transportation Authority (RTA) had hoped to purchase two new buses that ran on compressed natural gas, or CNG, this fall. The move would have bolstered county plans to launch a CNG fueling station in Gunnison, but the timing did not work out.
According to Scott Truex, executive director for the RTA, there were too many unknowns to move forward with the purchase of the CNG buses at this time. The RTA had applied for a DOLA grant to cover some of the increased costs of the CNG purchase and the outcome of that grant won’t be known until late March or early April. The new buses had to be ordered by this week.
In addition, the fuel purchase agreement between Gunnison County and Trillium, the company looking to operate the fueling station, is still being negotiated.
“It’s a long process to order a bus,” Truex said on Monday. “In order to get it in time, I had to let [the supplier] know today which way we were going to go.”
Waiting would have meant receiving the buses in January 2017 at the earliest, which Truex said would be too late for next year’s ski season.
At a January 2016 meeting of the RTA, its board of directors passed a motion that RTA staff should move forward with CNG buses if the purchase agreement was finalized and the DOLA grant awarded by February 1.
“We made every effort to delay the decision and to see if there was any way to expedite the fuel purchase agreement, but were unable to move any of the dates. Therefore, per the motion made at the last meeting, we will work with MCI and CDOT [the Colorado Department of Transportation] to purchase two diesel buses for arrival this fall,” Truex said.
The RTA’s ultimate transition to CNG plays a significant role in making a CNG fueling station profitable in Gunnison County.
John Cattles, the county’s facilities and grounds director, has been spearheading the efforts to launch a CNG fueling station. He said the county is moving forward with the installation of the CNG fueling station despite the RTA’s decision—in part because the RTA could purchase future CNG buses.
“It definitely hurts to lose those two buses…,” Cattles said. “We talked to the station owner and they seem to be okay with that. It’s a little slower rollout than we were hoping for but at end of day, instead of a five-year acquisition plan where we get up to where we want to be, it’s going to be six years.”
Cattles also explained that the negotiation of the fuel purchasing agreement had been delayed because Trillium’s parent company sold. He expects the contract to be finalized within the next couple of weeks and hopes to see the station built this summer as planned.
Truex confirmed that he hopes to purchase one bus, a CNG bus, during the fall of 2017. An additional four buses would be replaced between 2019 and 2020 as they come to the end of their life cycles and could run on CNG as well.
“The good news is that the CNG facility could still happen without our commitment for the first two buses and we may have the opportunity to switch to CNG with future bus purchases. So, though we will not be operating on CNG this fall, it is a definite possibility for the next bus,” Truex said.
