NG filling station moves forward in Springville

The operators of a compressed gas transfer station scheduled to go online in Springville Twp. have satisfied all initial township requirements and will meet with the planning board later this month to meet any county demands.
NG Advantage of Colchester, Vermont, purchased the 61-acre former Cabot Oil and Gas property off of Phillips Road with plans of using it as a filling station for their compressed natural gas trucks.
Springville Board of Supervisors Chairman Charlie Clark said that the township has granted NG Advantage all the permitting they need to proceed.
“Absolutely everything. They’ve been fully inspected by code and they have their occupancy permit,” Clark said.
“From the township they are good to do whatever they want,” Clark said.
Springville Township supervisors met Tuesday night.
Before the county planning board granted NG Advantage preliminary approval in August, officials told the board it expects to service as many as 100 trucks a day, said County Planning Director Robert G. Templeton.
Changes NG Advantage plans to make to the property include modifying the existing filling station to include three filling islands with a canopy and installing additional compression equipment. Other additions include a 12 by 20 foot building for electrical equipment as well as another 10 by 12 foot building for water quality.
“We (the county planning board) gave them preliminary approval to allow them to build,” Templeton said.
Officials from NG Advantage did not respond to several voice messages left and e-mails sent.
But NG Advantage officials recently visited Templeton with an update on the project and it is on the agenda for final approval during the board’s Dec. 18 meeting.
Templeton said that NG Advantage must next produce the results of a sound study before gaining final approval and that NG Advantage recently told him they planned to use less noisy and pollution free electric motors.
During last Wednesday’s county commissioners meeting, gas industry activist Vera Scroggins asked Commissioner Chair Alan Hall about NG Advantage’s plans, but Hall said, “I can’t tell you anything because this is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“This is an intense invasion of tractor trailers,” Scroggins said.
Hall said that as long as they satisfy any regulatory bodies involved – in this case the township codes office, the county planning board and, eventually, the state DEP – the commissioners can do nothing but sit and watch.
“At this level there’s nothing the commissioners can do. We have no authority, no control over any of that what’s going on there,” Hall said.
In April, NG Advantage abandoned plans to build a similar transfer station in Fenton, Broome County, New York, due to community complaints and safety objections from the local school board which spent more than $50,000 in court challenges to the site.