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KEY POINTS

BACKGROUND: The city has entered into a lease agreement with a Massachusetts firm to build a compressed natural gas fueling station near the highway garage.

CONCLUSION: When complete, it will be used to fuel the city’s new fleet of natural-gas-powered trash trucks.
One of the major obstacles in moving toward a clean-energy culture is cost – that’s why the initial investments in solar home-heating systems or battery-powered cars oftentimes are enough to discourage otherwise interested consumers from entering the market.

But on occasion something comes along that is beneficial to the environment and doesn’t bust the budget – and city officials should be commended for seizing one such opportunity.

On Tuesday night, the Board of Aldermen voted, 12-1, to enter into a three-year lease and operating agreement with a Massachusetts company that intends to build a compressed natural gas fueling station adjacent to the highway garage on Riverside Drive.

That agreement clears the way for the city to proceed with the planned purchase of nine trash trucks that will run on natural gas, a much cleaner alternative to diesel fuel.

The aldermen voted to buy the trucks – three of which will be automated and one semi-automated – at a cost of $2.3 million in December. A $400,000 grant from the state Department of Environmental Services will cover nearly all of the $460,000 price difference between these trucks and the more common diesel versions.

Mayor Donnalee Lozeau, the primary sponsor of the lease resolution, has been a leading proponent of gradually replacing the city’s fleet of diesel-powered trucks with those powered by natural gas. Last year, she established a committee of staff members that spent eight months researching potential truck manufacturers and natural gas providers.

Under the agreement, not only is the move to natural gas vehicles going to be good for the environment, it also has the potential to save the city money in fuel costs, too.

The three-year deal calls for the city to pay $2.30 per diesel gallon equivalent during the first two years and $2.27 in the third year. By way of comparison, the city recently paid $2.88 a gallon to fill its fleet of trucks with diesel fuel.

So unless the price of diesel falls substantially during the next three years, the city will be saving money every time one of its new trucks pulls up to the refueling station.

The city entered into the lease agreement with AVSG LP, a Massachusetts company that bills itself as the leading provider of compressed natural gas in New England.

The Waltham-based company owns and operates more than a dozen fueling stations in the region – including its flagship station at Boston Logan International Airport that is used to power the Massachusetts Port Authority’s fleet of 40-foot shuttle buses. The company’s closest fueling station to Nashua is in Tewksbury, Mass.

While the move to natural gas trash trucks is growing, it still represents only a fraction of the market. Two years ago, it was estimated that roughly nine out of 10 of the nation’s 179,000 waste collection, transfer and recycling vehicles were powered by diesel fuel, according to Inform, a nonprofit organization that advocates for pollution-free transportation.

And an earlier study found that nearly half of the diesel-powered trucks in use were nearing the end of their typical 12- to 14-year life spans, a time when they generate even more toxic emissions than usual. It’s been said replacing just one of these trucks with one powered by natural gas represents the pollution equivalent of taking 325 cars off the road.

For Nashua, this move is a classic win-win. For essentially the same amount of money, the city will be able to buy a fleet of trash trucks that will run cleaner, last longer and be cheaper to operate – and take a like number of pollution-generating vehicles off the road for good.

Going green while saving some green is a tough combination to beat.


Buck