New Road The Topic Of Steele City Town Hall Meeting

By Gordon HopkinsA meeting was held at the Steele City Town Hall the evening of Thursday, March 28, 2024, to inform locals what they can expect when construction begins on the road between Steele City and the Kansas state line.The road was severely damaged after the Keystone Pipeline oil spill at Mill Creek in Kansas, in December of 2022. TC Energy, the company formerly known as TransCanada, had trucks driving between Steele City and the oil spill site for several months. During the course of the oil spill cleanup, an estimated 100 trucks a day traversed the road. TC Energy was using those trucks to transport oil-contaminated dirt from the spill site in Kansas to a landfill in Douglas County. In addition, ‘clean’ dirt was taken by truck from a TC Energy property in Steele City to the oil spill site for restoration. Attending the meeting to answer questions were Senior Construction Manager Monte Hobelman and Construction Manager Brian Dorsey, both of Speece Lewis Engineers; Terry Blas and Jason Eyer of the Jefferson County Highway Department; and Jefferson County Commissioner Mark Schoenrock.After months of negotiations, TC energy agreed to pay for the bulk of the road. Jefferson County Commissioners accepted a bid from Cedar Valley Paving, LLC, of Waterloo, Iowa, to replace the road. The total bid amount was $3,516,816.12. Schoenrock told attendees, “So the net cost to the county is going to be somewhere around $500,000. We’re basically paying for the engineering, and we’re paying for the culverts and the guardrails. And TC Energy’s paying for everything else. So that’s going to be a good deal for the county.”“One of the things that we are stressing is to retain access while we’re doing the construction. We know that we’ve got some people that live along here. We know that we’ve got some people that have got crops and people that have got pasture along the road, so we’re going to do our best to maintain access. During the construction, that’s going be important. It will be some inconvenience for people,” said Schoenrock. “But just keep your eyes focused on the goal. We will have a nice, new road when we’re all done with it.” Hobelman said he understood the need for access, especially at this time of year.“With some coordination, if you need to, we should be able to get you in there and get your planting done,” said Hobelman. “You work with us and we will definitely work with everybody else. We really hope it’s kind of a smooth process.”Hobelman indicated the county would soon start putting up signs and moving the culverts into the area, “We have about two and a half mile paving that we’ll do. Our paving will start just south of the state line down there.”A map was available at the presentation, showing the detour route.

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