A City Owned Natural Gas Station

The City of Westlake recently started considering building a taxpayer funded compressed natural gas station near Interstate 10. Currently there are only two natural gas stations within 100 miles of Southwest Louisiana; one in Beaumont and one in Lafayette. The Mayor of Westlake believes that the CNG station will be beneficial to the area because of all the natural gas fueled 18-wheelers that pass through the area. The station may also influence local businesses to convert to using natural gas in their vehicle fleets.

How Much Will it Cost?

The Westlake compressed natural gas station is projected to cost approximately $2 million. $1.5 million being paid by the state and the other $500,000 by local taxpayers.

Will it Help

A local citizen mentioned that the United States does have more natural gas than oil, and that we need to figure out how to get our vehicles to operate on natural gas as the Europeans do. -It’s not that we can’t figure out how to get our vehicles to run on natural gas. There would have to be very little change to the manufacturing process in order to produce a vehicle that runs on natural gas. There are also conversion kits for many vehicles. The problem is that there are about 170,000 gasoline stations in the US and only about 1,000 natural gas stations. No one wants to drive an hour or more to fill their tank at the only station within 50+ miles. It would be nice to see more natural gas stations available, but will a station owned by a local city help or hurt? Will a business person considering building a natural gas station in the area want to compete with a tax payer funded store owned by a municipality?

Let us know your thoughts in the poll and comments section below.