Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

[John Mitton]

June 7, 2008 update is in post #16 here!

Gang,

I met up yesterday at the Brigham City station-opening event with Margaret Chambers, Director of the State Fleet Operations. As you can imagine, her office has been flooded with inquiries on the implementation of House Bill 103, which once again will open up the State refueling stations to public use in locations including:
* Utah State Univ.
* U. of Utah
* Granite School District
* Alpine School District
* Jordan School District
* UDOT

Here is the update:
There is an RFP that will go out any day now for vendors to bid on taking over the maintenance of the CNG stations as well as implementing a universal card reader to accept Visa, Mastercard, and Gascard. She hopes the vendor who wins the bid can get everything implemented by July.

I will keep you all posted, in the mean time let's hold off on bothering her

[John Mitton]

Re: Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

Update 4/15/08

John,
It was a pleasure to meet you.
I do have 2 pieces of information to share:

First, there is a ceremonial signing of the energy bills on April 29th at 10:00 AM in the Capitol Rotunda. There was a ceremonial signing of HB103 in Logan last Friday but it will be mentioned on the 29th.

Second, is that the Request for Proposal to privatize operating, maintaining and providing CNG at the University of Utah CNG site was issued from the Division of Purchasing on April 14, 2008 and will close on April 30, 2008 at 3:00 PM.

I appreciate your ability and willingness to share this information.

Sincerely,
Margaret

[cngacrossusa]

Re: Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

Wow, you've got some smart cng people out there in Utah!! Ole CE can't muster up enough brain cells to make their Colorado and New York cng public pumps use anything but the lame-brain "CE Fuel Card" which at some locations has been the only card that works for 10 years!!! CE progress is snail slow in areas they already have a monopoly!!

Go Questar!! Please branch out to other states and sweep through the middle of USA until you're all the way to the east coast!! I bet a large majority of the 1,200 members on this forum would assist in any way with growth plans for Questar!!

[lshuster]

Re: Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

Gang,

I will keep you all posted, in the mean time let's hold off on bothering her

Any chance we can acquire, post and read the RFP? I've heard concerns that additional NGV "signage" might be helpful. Does anyone know if that was part of the RFP?

I drove by U of U CNG pumps this morning. Whovever bids on the contract should realize that one of the two re-fueling nozzles has a "DO NOT USE" bag over it. The second nozzle does "appear" to be working and the pressure gauge showed a bit over 3000 PSI (for what that's worth).

What happens if there are no responses to the RFP?

Lee Shuster

[lshuster]

Good News: E-mail Updates on the UofU NGV station progress

Dear fellow CNGCHATer's,

(Just forwarding an e-mail update -- just in time for Earth Day --
to all interested parties).

Sounds like the U of U is fully onboard and eager to move forward. (That is very good!) Looks like the ball is firmly in the State's court, (and the RFP process) as indicated below.

I'm hoping we're able to make adequate celebration plans for participation and inclusion with not only State of Utah officials, but also the University's Office of Sustainability and appropriate Salt Lake City officials, so there's time to get out appropriate press releases, invitations, etc. This will go a long way to helping NGV'ers on the eastside of Salt Lake access clean fuel and improve air quality.

Thanks again, to all who contributed their time and efforts into making
this happen. With a bit of luck, it won't be long now.

Lee K. Shuster
University of Utah
________________________________

From: Mike Perez
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 7:57 PM
To: Fred Hunsaker; Lee Shuster
Subject: RE: Proposal for Celebrations

Dear Representative Hunsaker,

As discussed in advance of last year's legislative session, the University of Utah is happy to assist in the public's consumption of CNG at the fueling station located on campus. The University of Utah is ready to participate in discussions with all pertinent players to work out the details of this proposed process.

I and other University staff will await a call from appropriate State Department of Administrative Services personnel to get things started.

Regards,


Michael G. Perez
Associate Vice President
Facilities Management

University of Utah
________________________________

From: Fred Hunsaker
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 5:35 PM
To: Lee Shuster
Subject: RE: Proposal for Celebrations

Dear Lee Shuster,

I think it would be very appropriate to have a ribbon cutting ceremony to
celebrate the opening of the CNG pumps at the U of U to the public. I have copied Kim K. Hood, the Executive Director of the State Department of Administrative Services, Margaret E. Chambers, the Division Director of State Fleet and Surplus Property and Mike Perez the Assistant Vice President for Facilities at the university and would ask them to please work with you in making this event happen.

Thanks,


Rep. Fred R Hunsaker
________________________________

[John Mitton]

Re: Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

It looks as if the RFP (RT8021) has been extended one week to May 14, 2008

http://www.rfpdepot.com/DPX?ac=view&auc=103905

[annam]

Re: Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

Does anyone know what kind of gascards they use at the U or if there is any way I could get access before they formally open it? I am a student there and since I am there almost every day and pay them a lot of money each semester that would be nice to be able to fill up there.

[Jennifer]

Re: Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

Annam, I think you'll just have to be patient. Only state fleet vehicles can fill there right now.

[John Mitton]

Re: Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

Margaret let me know that they are still targeting July 1st to provide access at the U, and hopefully other stations too. The current thinking is to just allow us to use GASCARDs (such as you can get from Haycock Petroleum for Vegas stations).

[kirkbenge]

Re: Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

I'm aware of the University station, but does anyone know what other stations might be made available to the public?? I have read the House bill, and it simply stated that stations would be opened to the public if... "there is no commercial fuel site that meets the geographical compressed natural gas distribution needs of private individuals or entities..."
I sure hope that when they talk about "meeting distribution needs" that they are considering the extreme pressure on existing stations. I would certainly hope that they would consider opening up places like Jordan School District, or Granite School District, even though there may technically be a station nearby.

Has anyone seen a list of potential sites? Maybe this site should host a formal vote, and then propose locations that we feel should be given priority. (IF we can get a list of potential stations that is)

KIRK

[John Mitton]

Re: Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

Hi Kirk,
The list is in the opening post:
* Utah State Univ.
* U. of Utah
* Granite School District
* Alpine School District
* Jordan School District
* UDOT

The old Questar guide (attached) has the addresses.

Margaret seems fine with opening most all of them to us except:
* UDOT is not much more than a time fill operation: small compressor, small storage, access for public is problematic.
* Utah State might compete with Conoco however I am trying to convince her that when the Conoco station is down, folks are going to need an alternate in Logan.

[kirkbenge]

Re: Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

Thanks for the quick reply John,

I was curious if there are any other government fill stations that could potentially be impacted by this law. I was interested if any City stations would be directly impacted, or if some stations located outside the Wasatch front might also be opened to the public.

Some stations on my mind were:
1- The fill station in Delta, which is operated by the Utah Test & Training Range (my guess is that this is a Federal government station, and not influenced by the state decision?)
2- Orem City station (are City owned stations affected by this law?)
3- Murray City station (same question)
4- Salt Lake County Oxbow Prison (is this a county owned station?)


I was just curious if anyone knew if the State Division of Fleet Services was in charge of any of these other stations, and if they might be opened to the public. I have a feeling that these types of stations might not be directly influenced by H.B. 103, but I thought I'd ask if anyone knows for sure.
If they aren't influenced, do you think there are any ways of creating pressure to open them to the public?
I personally feel that the more stations that we can open to the public, the less pressure any single station is going to experience. More stations = stable infrastructure and better pressure for everyone.

[Yroc]

Re: Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

I heard that no one put in a bid to take care of the stations. Is this true? Are these stations still heading towards being open to us regular folk?

[John Mitton]

Re: Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

She had a number of inquiries for the RFP but everyone who was interested in taking over the maintenance did not want to mess with installing a card reader. That is why we are working toward using the existing GASCARD reader instead. The question of course is if the state is still OK with maintaining them, or if a new RFP is in the works for "maintenance only"

[j03j03]

Re: Public access to Utah's state-owned stations

Hey John is there anything we(the people in Cache Valley) can do to help convince them we need the USU station? We've been having really poor quality fills for the last 2 months or so and the one on USU would be of great help. The station at LW's can't keep up with the demand. I've seen the questar guys working on the compressor at least 3 times this month just trying to keep it running. If there's something I can do, please let me know!