Kiski Township, Rosebud Mining dispute fix for Hilty Road

Kiski Township is demanding that Rosebud Mining fix a road slide on Hilty Road.

But the mining company first wants the township to release it from future responsibility to fix the road.

Rosebud has used Hilty and other township roads for truck traffic to access its coal mining operations at their Tracy Lynne Mine, along Brownstown Road, about a quarter-mile from Hilty.

The Tracy Lynne Mine closed in 2016 and coal truck traffic ceased on Hilty Road six years ago, said Ken Opalka, assistant land manager for Rosebud Mining.

Rosebud took out a road bond years ago with the township, which serves as an insurance policy that requires the company to pay for damage caused by their trucks.

The company has paid for road repairs in the township before, said Patrick Bono, Kiski Township’s secretary-treasurer.

But not the recent repair on Hilty Road, a dirt road in a sparsely populated area.

“Rosebud wants us to release them from the bond but we decided to wait until after the rainy and snow season to consider it this year,” Bono said.

Opalka countered that the mining company wants to be released from the $2,400 bond because “we feel we did our part.”

This spring, the township found that the dip in the road that Rosebud has fixed before sank again by about 2 feet, Bono said. That damaged section of road is roughly 10 feet long. The road is passable but narrows to one lane in the slide area.

In 2019, the township approached Rosebud to fix the dip in the road, although the mine had been closed for almost three years at that time, Opalka said.

“We hadn’t had any trucks on that road,” he said. “We don’t feel our trucks were the cause but we felt that, in good faith, we would go in and fix the slide.”

When Rosebud fixed the road slide in the fall of 2020, there was an issue with a gas company working in the same stretch of Hilty after Rosebud’s repair, Opalka said. The mining company wanted to fix the road after the gas company project, but the work could not be coordinated, he said.

When the road slide reappeared again in the past year, the township asked Rosebud to again fix the road.

“We’ll make one last-ditch effort,” Opalka said. “We’ll fix it again, but the only way we are going back in is if they release us from the road bond.”

The township declined to release the company from the bond, Bono said.

“Obviously, the repair wasn’t done properly,” he said.

Township Solicitor Timothy Miller said he has never seen a company walk away from its bond. During a recent supervisors’ meeting, he advised the township to contact the bonding company.

Opalka said Rosebud will fix the road again if they are released from the bond and “that’s the way it stands now.”

In the meantime, the township engineer is looking at the cost to fix the road. Bono suspects it will be more than Rosebud’s bond.

“Taxpayer money will be on the hook until we get money back from the company that holds the bond, which is still in effect,” Bono said.

Freelance writer George Guido contributed to this report.