By Jeremy Peppas / Staff Writer / jpeppas@nlrtimes.com
Friday, January 21, 2011 12:53 PM CST



Danny Games, right, an executive with Chesapeake Energy, speaks at the groundbreaking of a compressed natural gas station in North Little Rock on Tuesday. The station is at the intersection Curtis Sykes Drive and Olive Street. (Jeremy Peppas)
A compressed natural gas station in North Little Rock took another step toward opening with a groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday morning.

The station is located at the intersection of Curtis Sykes Drive and Olive Street in North Little Rock’s Mid-City neighborhood.

On hand for the ceremony were Mayor Patrick Hays, aldermen and executives with the natural gas industry.

Hays said the station, the first public-use CNG facility in Central Arkansas, will be completed in 120 days and should be open for business sometime in April.

Prep work had begun already at the site with trees having been taken down.
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Also on hand was one of the city’s garbage trucks that had been converted over to CNG. The truck is one of two for garbage, and another truck is being used for brush hauling.

The city now has a total of three CNG vehicles, and the conversion was paid for by a grant from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.

The garbage truck was fired up for some of the city’s aldermen as a demonstration, and the vehicle is noticeably quieter than a diesel engine.

The garbage trucks have the 40-gallon CNG tank mounted on top, and the brush truck’s tank is underneath. With the top-mounted tank, the truck is a little under 13 feet high and should fit under most of the city’s overpasses and bridges.


The station will cost approximately $750,000 to construct with $500,000 coming from grants from the state and the natural gas industry. The city of North Little Rock is covering the difference.

Representatives from Chesapeake Energy said a station has been proposed in Damascus, north of Conway, in the heart of the Fayetteville Shale play.

Buck