By Kerri Pepoy,Staff Writer

OXFORD – Plans by Lampron Energy Inc. to expand a vacant fuel oil site on Route 26 with a bulk facility for delivery trucks along with a gas station and convenience store are progressing, according to the company’s president.

The bulk facility will supply the company’s delivery trucks with retail heating oil and should begin operating in early 2006, Dennis Dillon, president of Lampron Energy, said in a recent interview.

The construction of a new gas station and convenience store at the same location should begin in spring 2006, Dillon said.

“We own seven stores in Maine and plan on two more,” which would include the Oxford location and a new gas station on property the company owns in Hollis, he said.

The Gorham-based company recently purchased the 2-acre site in Oxford for an undisclosed price. The site included two out-of-service underground fuel tanks that will be put back into service once the gas station is built. Those tanks were installed in 1998 and serviced a gas station owned by W.H. Knightly Co. that burned down. The site had been vacant for at least one year before it was purchased by Lampron.

Two new fuel tanks will be installed underground within the next month to supply the bulk facility, Dillon said. One of the tanks is 30,000 gallons and the other is 20,000 gallons. All four tanks have secondary leak-detection technology.

The site is on an aquifer that runs through Oxford and Norway. George Seel, director of technical services for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said the expansion is exempt from restrictions implemented by the department in 2002.

Those restrictions require a company to perform geological tests to measure a site’s drinking water yield if the company wants to build a new facility and install underground fuel tanks at a site that is on a sensitive geological area, Seel said. However, the restrictions do not apply to companies that want to replace or expand an existing facility that was registered and installed prior to July 1, 2002.

“If the (Lampron) facility was brand new, chances are it wouldn’t happen,” Seel said.

Ryan Lippincott, superintendent of the Oxford and Norway water districts, said residents should not worry about the safety of their drinking water being compromised by the expanded facility. “They are upgrading and the technology they are using now is really state-of-the-art,” he said. “They have dual-wall technology. It really is nice stuff they are using now.”