Pat Vecchio (right) and Gov. George Pataki (left) welcome Boone Pickens to Smithtown, New York.
You’ve been a forceful advocate of alternative energy.
It’s common sense. We can’t continue on this road of (1) polluting our atmosphere, (2) depending on foreign oil, and (3), as someone who once had a respiratory problem, I’m well aware of the particulates that are in our air. We need to change that.
What changes have you implemented in Smithtown?
We had an opportunity to establish new contracts with our garbage carters and require them to use only dedicated natural-gas-fueled trucks. I jumped all over that. That decision was made in less than three weeks because we needed to build a new fueling station and for 22 brand new CNG refuse trucks to be ordered and built before the old garbage contracts ended in six months. The town council supported me 100 percent, and we mandated that some 22 garbage carter trucks had to be dedicated natural gas fueled. Six months after our decision we had a new CNG vehicle fueling station and an entirely new refuse collection fleet running on cleaner, cheaper and domestic fuel.
In addition to that, five or six years ago, every town building which operated on home heating oil was changed to natural gas. It’s less expensive, which wasn’t the main reason. The main reason was the environment. Natural gas is cleaner burning and you don’t have the problems associated with leaking underground oil tanks.
That’s impressive.
That’s not all. We’ve also gone to natural-gas-powered cars and pickup trucks, hybrid gasoline electric vehicles, and electric cars. We’ve changed over two brand-new heavy duty trucks for our highway department to run on natural gas, and we’ve repowered two other older heavy duty trucks to natural gas engines. We’ve also put a natural gas fueled street sweeper in service, and the budget for 2010 will include even more of those environmentally-friendly trucks. By the way, 15 percent of our electricity already comes from wind power.
That makes sense. You’re right on Long Island Sound.
And next year’s capital budget will include a wind turbine up at our recycling facility that will help reduce electricity costs at that plant, which is the town’s highest consumer of electric power. We are also installing a 30kW solar panel system on the recycling facility roof. So Smithtown is on top of the issue of the environment. We support alternative and renewable energy. It makes sense for both environmental and energy security reasons.
Are other communities on Long Island following your lead?
Yes, the Town of Brookhaven, which is the largest town in Suffolk County. It goes from one shore to the other and has approximately 400,000 residents. They have now copied our natural gas refuse truck initiative, and their new contract for garbage carters requires natural gas trucks. In addition to that, the Town of Huntington, which is somewhat larger than Smithtown, will also be doing that in 2010. This has enabled us to go to the private market and get the firm of Clean Energy to build us a new natural gas fueling station at our recycling facility. Because the towns are contiguous, both towns will be able to use that facility and not go far distances to refuel.
In addition, we have had conversations with a fairly large school district about their opportunity to use our new CNG fueling station and having their bus fleet converted to natural gas.
The need for new sources of cleaner, cheaper and domestic energy is critical. The technology for wind, solar and natural gas is available, and the time for action is now!
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED, AND EDITED BY ERIC O’KEEFE