Management of airport tank farm is considered
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
If the island will eventually store most of its fuels at a four-million-gallon tank farm east of the airport off Bunker Road, the Airport needs to figure out who will manage such a facility.

The feasibility studies on the practicality of connecting storage tanks to a fuel pipeline running off the South Shore are completed. According to the study, a tanker would dock at a single-point mooring and pump fuels into the pipeline. The island's newly-created Bulk Fuel Committee is now discussing what entity would run the tank farm and how.

Meeting for the first time on April 12, the committee elected Whitey Willauer as its chairman and Dual McIntyre as its vice chairman before getting down to business.

Although the Bulk Fuel Committee batted around several operational schemes - from the airport's running the tank farm, to a private company's doing the job, or some sort of public private cooperative effort - the members could not agree on how the $50-million tank farm would be run.

"The question is, if the airport were really taking on the leadership here, and I don't think it will, would it be within the authority of the airport to run it," said Bulk Fuel Committee member and Airport Commission Chairman Foley Vaughan. "[I think] it would be a stretch."

Competition between the town and Harbor Fuel, the committee determined, is an issue the committee would have to face should it go this route, said Bulk Fuel Committee member and airport manager Al Peterson.

But McIntyre cautioned against going with a private group that might not have the town's best interests in mind.

"One thing about turning the land over to a private entity is I'm not sure they will be as concerned with the environment as the town would be," said McIntyre.

Because one of the main goals of the out-oftown tank farm is to relocate storage of Harbor Fuel's oil, diesel and gasoline to a new facility out of the aquifer protection zone and away from the Old Historic District, the committee seemed to be working toward a scenario that included Harbor Fuel in its management at some level. But how to do that is likely to be left to the Airport Commission's consultant, Leo Roy of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. of Watertown, Mass.

According to Roy, most or all of the island's fuel could be delivered by tanker with three or four deliveries a year between April and November. Some of the lesser-used fuels, like diesel and liquid natural gas, could still be trucked to the island as needed.

In 2004, Nantucket burned 313,771 gallons of aviation fuel; 1,311,549 gallons of jet fuel; 420,000 gallons of low sulfur diesel; 3,780,000 gallons of #2 heating fuel; 4,631,000 gallons of propane; 2,417,760 of unleaded gasoline and 900,480 gallons of high-test gasoline. Heating fuel, gasoline and diesel is barged to the island and pumped from Old South Wharf into the downtown tank farm. All aviation, jet fuel, propane and some gasoline is trucked to the island on Steamship Authority ferries. The airport stores all its airplane fuel onsite.

The Bulk Fuel Committee voted unanimously to use Roy and VHB as its consultant, rather than starting from scratch with a new search and hiring process. It also agreed to email all its relevant questions on how the tank farm would be built, who would operate it and the workings of a potential public-private partnership to

Airport Operations. I