Last night something truly remarkable happened in Williamsport, PA–after all of the fuss over pipelines that won’t even come into the city last week, there was a public hearing and city council approval for the first ever compressed natural gas fueling station in Lycoming County without any opposition!

River Valley Transit, one of the largest consumers of diesel fuel in Lycoming County, will be converting their entire fleet to compressed natural gas. This is a big endeavor that will not only put the city ahead of the rest of the county in preparing for our energy future, but also could save RVT close to $400,000 a year in fuel costs!

Storage tanks and a compressor station will be located on city property near the current fueling station of RVT. Tanks will be about 20 feet long and around 1 foot in diameter. The station will obtain the gas from the current UGI distribution lines that run under the city. Larson Design Group will be heading the engineering of the project and hopes to partner with the natural gas industry to move forward with construction.

The station will be open for government and municipal use only at first and then as demand increases, they will open it to the public. People will pump the fuel themselves in a manner similar to using an air compressor and many safeguards are in place such as automatic shut-offs to add to its safety. The pump will even automatically convert figures to a gallon of gasoline so that individuals will not have to switch their thinking to “miles per cubic feet” right away!

City Council, asked several questions and made comments, but the message they presented was clear: “We want Williamsport to be the first to have this. We want to get off foreign dependency of oil. This is safer in many ways than pumping gasoline. Natural gas is the future, especially with the Marcellus Shale so close to home.” All who voted were in favor, with one member absent and one abstaining because he works for UGI.

Congratulations Williamsport! This is a major step in the right direction to decreasing our foreign dependency on fossil fuels, having cleaner burning cars and making travel cheaper! Way to go!

The following pictures show the plans for the project.