By CHRIS PARKER

cparker@tnonline.comSchuylkill commissioners on Wednesday took another step in the expansion of the HighRidge industrial park when they granted utility and access easement to a company building a natural gas filling station at the site.The easement, for driveways and a drainage pipe extension on Keystone Boulevard to lot four in the park, was granted to Trillium CNG.The station would use compressed natural gas from pipelines within the park. It will serve truck fleets, including those working for a number of park businesses.Efforts to reach Schuylkill Economic Development Corporation president Frank Zukas for more details were unsuccessful Wednesday.The park will, over the next two decades, be expanding into two new areas, Schuylkill Airport Business Park and HighRidge Business Park North.The Schuylkill Airport Park would be about 1,000 acres in Foster Township, near the county airport. About half of that land, all zoned industrial, is owned by the county, and the other half by CES Landfill.HighRidge Business Park North would be about 300 acres on the west side of Interstate 81, near the federal prison on land owned by SCIDA, SEDCO, Coal Products and the Blythe Township Municipal Authority.The plans align with the proposed HighRidge improvement District, the entity that would create and oversee the fund that upgrades and maintains the park.HighRidge houses Lowe's, Wegmans, Electrolux, Sara Lee, Jones Stephens, and Gordon distribution centers, the Jeld-Wenn door manufacturing plant and the Fanelli trucking and warehousing logistics center.In other matters at the workshop session, commissioners opened the sole bid received for prison guards' uniforms and five for repairs to county bridge number 30, which spans Swatara Creek at Spittler Road in Pine Grove Township.Hess Embroidery & Uniforms, West Reading, submitted the sole bid, $36,906.82, for the uniforms.Bridge base bids were: Deblin of Mechanicsburg, $542,321.76; Descco of Fleetwood, $655,949.44; Heim Construction Company of Orwigsburg, $519,498.55; Pioneer Construction of Honesdale, $569,397.16; Grace Industries of Bath, $595,706.10.The bids will be reviewed before the contracts are awarded.Also on Wednesday, commissioners hired 10 voting machine delivery drivers in anticipation of the Nov. 4 general election: Kenneth Eichenberg, Minersville, $170; Jason Frantz, Girardville, $160; William Klinger, Frackville, $160; Thomas Kurtek, Pottsville, $140; Walter Leashefski, Orwigsburg, $220; Wayne Robbins, Frackville, $210; Robert Schlack, Shenandoah, $210; Denise Wallace, New Philadelphia, $210; Joe Zurat, Tower City, $200; and Amy Downer, Frackville, $210.Commissioners also approved hiring six people to work on the election computing board at $70 a day, beginning at 9 a.m. Nov. 7: Joann Myers, Rose Kern, Joann Dower, Sharon Chiao, James P. Klock, and Marylou Mcginley.