The Princeton municipal fueling station will remain at its location on Mount Lucas Road, next to the Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad’s new headquarters.
Princeton Council voted 5-1 to keep the fueling station at its present site at a special meeting that was held on Nov. 18.
Princeton Council accepted a set of nine recommendations made by the town’s Public Works Committee, chief among them to keep the fueling station in place. The committee initiated the study in response to residents’ objections to its location.
Princeton Council President Jenny Crumiller and Council members David Cohen, Letitia Fraga, Eve Niedergang and Tim Quinn voted to keep the fueling station on Mount Lucas Road.
Council member Dwaine Williamson cast the lone “no” vote. He favored splitting the the fueling needs among three sites – the Mount Lucas Road site, the Department of Public Works repair garage on Harrison Street, and the River Road facility.
The Department of Public Works repair garage has existing limited fueling capabilities, but the River Road site has a non-functioning fueling station. It could be repaired and put back into service.
Among the other recommendations made by the Public Works Committee, it was recommended that the canopy on the Mount Lucas Road fueling station should be removed and new lighting installed. The generator would be removed for aesthetic reasons.
The report recommended raising the height of the wall that screens the fueling facility from six feet to nine feet. Brick veneer would be applied to the wall to tie it in visually with the new Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad building. Landscaping would be added.
It was also recommended to move the fueling of some of the Department of Public Works diesel trucks to the Harrison Street garage, and to explore repairing the River Road fueling facility to allow vehicles to refuel there “where practical.”
The tab for the recommendations is $125,857.
Mayor Liz Lempert acknowledged that the placement of the fueling station was “a challenging project for all of us.”
The ultimate goal is for Princeton to switch to zero emissions vehicles, but the town is not ready to replace its entire fleet with electric vehicles, Mayor Lempert said. It is not practical at this point.
The irony of the fueling station is that the town needs greater storage capacity for gasoline than the previous fueling station could accommodate, Mayor Lempert said.
In this post-Superstorm Sandy era, the town needs to ensure that it has an adequate supply of fuel for its fleet, including emergency services vehicles, she said.
Mayor Lempert reminded the attendees that Princeton was without electricity for many days after Superstorm Sandy, and there were problems with fuel deliveries. The town needs the fueling station, she said.
Mayor Lempert turned the meeting over to Administrator Marc Dashield, who reviewed the Public Works Committee’s 10-page report for the attendees.
There has been a municipal fueling station on the property at the corner of Valley Road and Mount Lucas Road since at least the early 1980’s, Dashield said. It served the former Princeton Township and then became the consolidated Princeton’s fueling station for its police cars, ambulances, fire trucks and for the Princeton Public Schools’ buses.
In the meantime, the Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad outgrew its headquarters on Harrison Street. The town agreed to allow the squad to build a new headquarters on the property at the corner of Valley Road and Mount Lucas Road. It also meant relocating the fueling station pumps, Dashield said.
Former Municipal Engineer Robert Kiser and Robert Hough, the former Director of Infrastructure and Operations, reviewed potential locations for the fueling station, and decided to keep it on the same site but in a different location, Dashield said.
The decision to increase the storage capacity from 4,000 gallons to 6,000 gallons was a result of the town’s need to increase its resiliency and to improve preparedness during weather emergencies, he said. A canopy was included to protect the equipment and the employees from the weather.
Shocked at the size of the fueling station and its industrial look, residents raised concerns that it was out of character with the neighborhood last spring. It was agreed to remove the canopy and provide landscaping to screen the above-ground storage tank.
Residents continued to voice their objections, so Princeton officials reviewed alternative sites for the fueling station in addition to the Mount Lucas, Harrison Street and River Road sites.
None of those alternative sites – the former Valley Road School site, Community Park South and the Police Department parking lot – were deemed to be viable options.
In the end, Princeton officials determined that keeping the fueling station on Mount Lucas Road was the “best choice” that they had, Dashield said.
But none of the two dozen or so residents who attended the Nov. 18 meeting supported keeping the fueling station on Mount Lucas Road.
Resident Austin Clayton said the situation was “very frustrating.”
“What frustrates me the most is that you manufactured a crisis. You didn’t follow the right process. Suck it up,” Clayton said. He also challenged Princeton Council to name one municipal vehicle that had run out of fuel.
Resident Katerina Visnjic said there are environmental issues. She mentioned the gasoline fumes that would emanate from the fueling station, and the light pollution from the night time lighting at the fueling station, although the lights are activated by a motion sensor.
Resident Heidi Fichtenbaum said that although the fueling station has been in place for many years, “that is not the most compelling reason” to keep it there. The former fueling station had an underground storage tank, which was less intrusive.
Putting up a wall and landscaping it to hide the fueling station “says it’s a huge, ugly thing. This needs way more study than we have given it,” Fichtenbaum said.
But Council member Tim Quinn replied that the town’s Climate Action Plan talks about storms that will be stronger and more frequent – and that is an argument for a larger storage tank.
Quinn said he does not see the River Road site, which floods frequently, as a good location for the main fueling station site.
The Princeton Police Department, the Princeton Fire Department and the Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad are centered around Valley Road and Mount Lucas Road, he said. They should not have to drive out to River Road to refuel.
It is a matter of public safety and response time. Quinn said that when an ambulance or a fire truck is needed, “i want it to be there right away” – not refueling at the River Road site, when it could be refueling near the firehouse or the squad building.