Weld county gives NGVs a boost: coalition builds alternative-fuel corridor from Denver to Wyoming.

• Author: Lewis, David

The 16 local natural gas fueling stations in nine Colorado cities already from a discernible pattern on the map from Colorado Springs to Greeley.

Weld County wants to fill in some more of the blanks up to the state line, becoming a natural-gas vehicle fuel corridor between Wyoming and the Denver metro area by opening compressed natural gas stations throughout the county.

In December CNG stations opened for business in Kersey mid Fort Lupton, both owned by Dallas-based Zeit Energy. Earlier natural gas stations opened in Firestone and Greeley. both owned by Gainesville, Ga.-based Mansfield Energy Corp.

"We are excited to reach this milestone," said Commissioner Barbara Kirkmeyer, who formed the Weld County Natural Gas Coalition in 2009. "One of the goals of the Coalition goals to create an alternative fuel corridor between the Denver metro area and Wyoming. with the opening of these two stations, Weld County and the Natural Gas Coalition have reached that goat."

The Weld County Natural Gas Coalition comprises county government, municipalities and public and private sector entities including Clean Cities of Colorado, Conquest Water Services, Upstate Colorado Economic Development, Denver-based natural gas marketer, gatherer and processor and natural gas liquids producer DCP Midstream, and three natural gas exploration and production companies: Houston-based Noble Energy, The Woodlands. Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp., and Calgary, Alberta-based Encana Corp.

The story really begins in 2007, when the Environmental Protection Agency designated the Denver and North Front Range region as a "nonattainment zone" for ozone standards. This made Weld County eligible through DRCOG, the Denver Regional Council of Governments, for funding from the EPA's Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program, or CMAQ.

"The purpose of the federal CMAQ program is to fund transportation projects Or programs that will contribute to attainment or maintenance of the NAAQS (the EPA's National Ambient Air Quality Standards) particularly for ozone in the Weld County region," explains the Weld County 2035 Transportation Plan.

The CMAQ grant gave Weld County more than $3 million in CMAQ funds for the fiscal years 2010 to 2012 to promote natural gas. Thus was the Weld County Natural Gas Coalition formed and the Weld County Smart Energy Plan created.

"Weld County is in a nonattainment zone, and that's very, very important. With the CMAQ funds they became a pass-through...