Officials Pumped Up Over Sweet-Smelling Boat Fuel

One by one, people drifted from an outdoor buffet table to the rumbling rear of a National Park Service boat called Sea Ranger II, sniffing the exhaust for its elusive bouquet.

“French fries,” offered one man.

“Definitely not popcorn,” someone else ventured. “Maybe a bit of Chinese restaurant.”

The fumes were the centerpiece Thursday at the opening of a Ventura Harbor fuel dock where boaters can fill their tanks with a clean-burning brew made from a first cousin of tofu: soybean oil.

While forms of “biodiesel” are available to yachtsmen at a handful of West Coast anchorages, Ventura’s operation is far and away the largest, according to Jenna Higgins, a spokeswoman for the Missouri-based National Biodiesel Board.

It’s also the first fuel dock to offer pure biodiesel instead of a blend, she said.

Gathered for a ribbon-cutting at the new pump, officials with the city, Ventura Port District, Ventura Chamber of Commerce, National Park Service, Ventura Harbor Patrol and the Navy inhaled enthusiastically.

“It’s a pleasant smell,” said Niel Madsen, who runs the fuel dock for Ventura Harbor Marine Fuel Inc.

“Regular diesel makes me seasick,” he said.

John Johnson, the firm’s owner, said more than $500,000 had been poured into upgrading the dock opposite Andria’s seafood restaurant. About one-third of his company’s 60,000-gallon storage capacity will be given over to the soy-based fuel that is trucked in from the Midwest, he said.

At $2.89 a gallon, biodiesel works in any engine that runs on standard diesel but goes for more than twice the cost. Proponents, however, say it does less harm to the environment and eliminates the thick, noxious billows of diesel smoke that, combined with robust waves, have turned many a passenger green.

“Your wife will say the boat smells like home,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s biggest customer will be the National Park Service. With a federal subsidy, Channel Islands National Park burns biodiesel in two of its four boats.

“If we have an unplanned release, we’re basically spilling vegetable oil into the ocean,” said Rhonda Brooks, the ranger who oversees the national park’s fleet. “It won’t compromise the environment.”

Until now, Brooks said, the National Park Service has relied on biodiesel hauled in by truck. Filling up took three hours, she said.

With the new biodiesel pump, however, it will take 20 minutes.

Recreational boaters also can fuel at the dock. At a few other California harbors, the biodiesel setup involves nothing much more than a 55-gallon drum and a hose, Johnson said.

With less biodiesel for sale, the cost is higher, topping out at as much as $5 a gallon.

Since 1999, biodiesel has been adopted by more than 150 government agencies and school districts across the country. But its sales still are well below 1% of petroleum-based diesel’s, according to the National Biodiesel Board.

It could wind up competing with another alternative fuel. Scientists at Naval Base Ventura County are planning a pilot project that would convert restaurant grease into fuel.

“We don’t have local crops for the job,” the Park Service’s Kent Bullard said. “But we can always harvest McDonald’s.”