CNGnow

The Town of Oyster Bay has been awarded an additional $407,970 in grant money for its compressed natural gas (CNG) project, which included the construction of a CNG fueling station, the conversion of trucks to CNG and the purchase of CNG-ready vehicles.

TOBAY Supervisor John Venditto said the town had previously been granted  $5,223,529 in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding through the U.S. Department of Energy Clean Cities Alternative Fuel and Advanced Technology Vehicles Pilot Program.

Those funds came through a grant application that was part of a consortium of Nassau-Suffolk County applications submitted to the U. S. Department of Energy by the Greater Long Island Clean Cities Coalition (GLICC), Venditto said. When one applicant withdrew, the remaining funds were reallocated.

The town's CNG fueling station, located at the Department of Public Works complex in Syosset, began operating earlier this year. Under this grant, the town has converted 31 heavy-duty sanitation trucks, which are also used for snow removal operations, to CNG, and purchased 13 CNG-ready sanitation trucks.

The supervisor noted that an additional five trucks were repowered under a grant came from the U.S. Department of Transportation-Federal Highway Administration Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program (CMAQ) through the Greater Long Island Clean Cities Coalition, bringing the town’s fleet of CNG trucks to a total of 49.

In addition to the fact that CNG is domestically produced, Venditto said  that the benefits of using CNG include producing an average of 27 percent fewer greenhouse emissions than comparable gasoline or diesel models and creating jobs in vehicle and equipment manufacturing, station construction, and ongoing vehicle and station operations.​