City officials are hitting the accelerator in a campaign to provide more public access to compressed natural gas filling stations.

Thanks to a $1.4 million federal grant and about $300,000 of in-kind donations, Owasso hopes to convert large portion of its municipal fleet to CNG-powered vehicles. The city also plans to use the donated money to build a fueling stop that will replicate a historic gasoline station on Main Street that had an outdoor lift and steep roof pitch. The CNG station, once completed next year, will have a yesteryear look but will be built to serve the future, said Larry White, the city’s support services director, adding that the CNG fleet conversions and the station to fuel those vehicles go hand in hand.

“We’ve tried to bring these two projects together,” White said. “In Oklahoma it makes such good sense.”

City officials are hoping to close on the land purchase needed for the station soon, White said. The U.S. Reinvestment and Recovery Act stimulus grant, awarded last year, should pay for converting 30 to 40 city vehicles ranging from Public Works trucks to administrative vehicles and possibly police cars.

“It’s going to be convenient for people,” White said. “In Oklahoma, I think you can travel all over the state and find CNG stations.”

Indeed, CNG fueling stations are popping up across the state. Oklahoma Natural Gas has many unmanned sites statewide available to motorists who have a credit card, while Tulsa Gas Technologies also has a fueling station in Tulsa.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. and OnCue Express teamed up in the past year to put in stations in Oklahoma City and more distant locales such as Weatherford, Waynoka, Lindsay, Arkoma and Wilburton.

Last week, Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett said he wants a sustainability plan that includes another CNG station along with the current facility at 420 W. 23rd St. The city of Tulsa also wants to require its next residential trash contractor to convert at least half of its fleet to CNG.

Ramping up CNG infrastructure to encourage more private and public vehicles on the road is a numbers game right now, an automotive industry official said.

“We could always use more,” said Mark Sprowls, a CNG sales specialist at Joe Marina Honda. “There hasn’t been all that much going on in Tulsa; it’s all happened in Oklahoma City with OnCue. They opened a bunch of them last year.”

The challenges facing CNG are substantial, regardless of verbal support from influential figures such as T. Boone Pickens and various congressional leaders. The NatGas Act to create tax credits for fleet conversions still has not gotten out of committee despite bipartisan support.

The previous tax credit has expired and business has slowed down, Sprowls noted. Honda’s American division did not make many of its CNG-dedicated Civic GXs last year and may not roll out the 2012 versions until September or later.

“It’s stayed kind of flat,” said Sprowls, who got into CNG vehicle sales after servicing them for years and even has his own compressor-fueling station at home. “I don’t have any” currently but new and improved models should roll in later this year, Sprowls said.

Honda isn’t the only CNG option, although it is the only dedicated natural gas vehicle sold in the U.S. Ford also offers bi-fuel conversion kits for some of its models. CNG’s biggest advantage is the high octane rating around 130 — compared with 87 for regular unleaded gasoline — and fuel costs at only about $1.39 per gallon of gasoline equivalent.

The big challenge, if course, is finding those vehicles and where to fill them up. “To a lot of people it’s a huge issue,” Sprowls said. “It’s really not that difficult a deal.”

In fact, CNG drivers can make it from Bartlesville to Tulsa, or Tulsa to Oklahoma City, or even Tulsa to Dallas and have no worries when they need to fill up, he pointed out. They just do a little CNG station mapping and advance planning.

“It’s a really easy trip down to Dallas,” Sprowls said.

Owasso’s White would be happy just to help CNG drivers get around his city conveniently. He likes that Owasso soon will offer another alternative for a domestic fuel source.

“We’re right there on the edge,” White said.

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