Negotiations Continue with TC Energy to Repair Steele City Road

By Gordon HopkinsTC Energy, the company formerly known as TransCanada, has agreed to pay $3,27 million to overlay 14 miles of blacktop road up to the state line.No deal has yet been reached for the road on the Nebraska side of the state line, running through Jefferson County to Steele City. TC Energy has agreed verbally to replace the damaged road but Jefferson County Commissioners are eager to have a contract signed.A estimated 100 plus trucks a day traversed the road between Steele City and Washington County, Kansas, for much of this year. While the trucks are no longer running, the damage is done.TC Energy was using those trucks to transport oil-contaminated dirt from the Keystone Pipeline oil spill site at Mill Creek, Kansas, which occurred in December of 2022, to a landfill in Douglas County Nebraska. In addition, “clean” dirt was taken by truck from a TC Energy property in Steele City to the oil spill site for restoration.Commissioners expressed their frustration at the delay during a meeting on Tuesday, October 10. Commissioner Gale Pohlmann told his fellow commissioners he had recently spoken with Senator Tom Brandt about other possible solutions.Commissioner Mark Schoenrock said, “We continue to work on our proposal to TC Energy for the Steel City road. Tim Farmer (county engineer) is working on our proposal.”Much of the traffic that damaged the road was the result of transporting “clean soil” to Kansas to support backfilling excavated areas and the management of temporary berms at the spill site.That portion of the operation took several months to complete. Despite numerous requests from FJN, TC Energy has thus far refused to say how much soil was taken from Jefferson County and taken to Kansas.

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