Bringing together the old of the fuel world with the new
SeQential Biofuels to be among honorees at national conference
SeQuential Biofuels in Eugene, Ore., the first entirely alternative fueling station in the nation, has received a national award and will be honored at the upcoming National Brownfields Conference.
Sequential Biofuels is the winner of the 2007 UST Phoenix Award, an award given annually to one unique petroleum redevelopment project in the nation. The company and its state and local partners are being honored for transforming an abandoned gas station into an innovative alternative fuel facility. The service station also is a green facility, incorporating a 33.6 kw solar array, living roof and water remediation features.
“It’s bringing together the old of the fuel world with the new,” says Ian Hill, a company co-founder.
Created in 1997, the Phoenix Awards honor individuals and groups working to solve the critical environmental issue of transforming abandoned industrial areas into productive new uses.
One Phoenix Award winner is selected annually from each of EPA’s 10 regions. (The Region 10 winner is the Thea Foss Waterway Brownfield Revitalization project in Tacoma, Wash.) One winner also is selected for the Community Impact Award and one winner for the UST Award. All winners will be honored in May at the National Brownfields Conference (www.brownfields2008.or) in Detroit.
While SeQuential Biofuels (www.sqbiofuels.com) has been receiving much attention this past year, the award is the company’s first national honor. The award reaffirms that the company is on the right track, Hill says. It also has bolstered team morale within the company and helped it to raise more money for its efforts.
The project is a great example of what can come when public entities and private businesses partner on redevelopment projects, says Jim Glass, the petroleum brownfields coordinator for Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
“It took a huge effort and coordination and collaboration between state, local and federal (agencies) and private folks to make it happen,” Glass says.
SeQuential Biofuels, which sells ethanol and biodiesel blends, has 36 branded pumps around Oregon with independent retail sites. The company currently is expanding its commercial biodiesel production facility. Annually, it will produce 5 million gallons of ASTM-certified biodiesel made from used cooking oil collected from Pacific Northwest restaurants and food processors and from crops such as virgin canola oil. The expanded facility will be operating by July.
The retail fuel station sits along a commercial corridor adjacent to Interstate 5. The former Franko facility sold gasoline from 1976 until 1991, when it was turned over to a bankruptcy trustee. In 1991, petroleum contamination from the site was observed during trenching along the highway east of the site. Contamination migrated to a residential well west of the facility.
In 1996, a private party purchased the property and removed five underground storage tanks and some contaminated soil. Lane County then acquired the property through tax foreclosure, and in January 2005 removed more than 400 tires and 15 drums of waste. SeQuential Biofuels opened for business in September 2006.
This was a complex project that relied on many tools, including engineering and institutional controls, a Prospective Purchaser’s Agreement with DEQ, a cooperative intergovernmental agreement with Lane County and a brownfields cleanup grant from EPA to Lane County with matching funding in the form of a loan from the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department’s Brownfields Redevelopment Fund. “We utilized all the tools in the toolbox to get the site to where it is,” Glass says.
A letter of no further action has not been issued yet on the project. The soil and shallow groundwater cleanup is complete; however, there appears to be a deeper groundwater issue in the site vicinity that requires further assessment, Glass says.
An unexpected result from the project is that other companies exploring the idea of redeveloping a brownfields site call Hill, looking for advice. They want to hear about the company’s experience working with state, local and federal agencies.
“We had such a great experience,” Hill says. “We can give them great feedback.”
As for DEQ, it sees the project as a major success because it cleaned up environmental contamination and the redevelopment has uplifted the area. “I don’t know how it could get any better,” Glass says.
