Lilly-area bony piles disappearing

Jan 22 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Kathy Mellott The Tribune-Democrat, Johnstown, Pa.

This community's coal refuse piles are moving on.

Late last year, a Loretto-based trucking company began hauling waste coal to the Colver Power Project plant, which burns the material to generate power for resale.

An estimated 450,000 cubic yards of bony was left behind by the coal industry years ago.

The work, still in its initial stages, has some people concerned, said Lilly resident Jack Barlick of Piper Street.

"We're getting some dirt on the street," Barlick said. "I can see it on my porch and can tell it on the snow -- it's showing."

But so far, the biggest fear residents expressed when the project was announced in April 2007 -- the potential for trucks speeding along Piper Street into Lilly -- has not materialized, Barlick said.

"The truckers are honoring their promise that they would go 15 miles per hour," Barlick said.

"They've been faithful to that."

The bony piles, created more than a half century ago, are some of the remnants of dozens of coal mines that operated in the area in the early and mid 1900s.

In recent years, technology has improved, allowing a larger percentage of the piles to be burned to produce energy.

The plant has a lease with Cooney Bros. Coal Co. of Cresson and the C.A. Hughes estate to remove bony from 40 acres of land in Washington Township.

The waste coal is located at two sites east of Lilly and in close proximity to the Memorial Park ballfield, where American Legion and AAABA tournament games are played.

The bony, now being hauled by Hite Trucking Co. of Loretto, covers an area that eventually will provide recreation and play space.

Washington Township Supervisor Ray Guzic said work should be completed later this year on the 12-acre site that was donated to the township by Paul Cooney. Plans are to build a walking trail around the perimeter site and a much-needed additional ballfield as money allows, he said.

"We can't do anything on the land until (the bony) is out," Guzic said.

The township likely will not start any projects on the donated land until next year.

Guzic said he is pleased to see the bony piles shrinking. That work will reduce acid-mine runoff during heavy rains.

"I'm up and down there four or five times a day and things are going pretty well," he said.

"It's definitely an improvement. You can see they're making some progress."

Work on the Washington Township piles was delayed until the plant could handle the bony, said Jeffry Zick of Inter-Power/AhlCon, parent company of Colver Power.

"We were finishing up other sites, mainly one big one near Colver," he said. "We're moving around the area."

Meanwhile, the company during the past few years has built a bridge over Bear Rock Run Creek on Memorial Drive about a half-mile east of Lilly. The span was needed to gain full access to the site.

Colver Power crews also did work on a playground in Lilly, part of an attempt to give back to the community for the inconvenience of the trucks, officials said.

Zick said it's difficult to estimate when the bony piles will be gone.

"So much of it depends on how deep it is and what you find in various areas," he said. "It will be more than a couple years."

Zick said the bony will be hauled from the large piles and further into the wood line, what he termed "fingers of coal," near Bear Run.

What is estimated to be

16 trucks making round trips daily between Lilly and Colver are traveling Piper Street to Route 53 then proceeding through Lilly and eventually Route 22 before heading west to the power plant.

It was this route that brought the loudest protests from the residents who wanted the co-gen plant to build an alternate road through the eastern end of the township into Cresson Township.

They gave up their fight after learning PennDOT could not prevent the trucks from using Route 53.

Barlick said he is keeping a close eye on the project and has raised concerns over a number of items. He is watching to make sure the trucks are tarped and has spotted evidence of the heavy traffic on the roadway.

"I ride up there every day to see what they've accomplished and in time the road is going to deteriorate," he said.

Colver Power has excess maintenance agreements -- bonds -- on the Washington Township roads, officials said.

Meanwhile, Ridge Energy Co. of Clymer has removed a much smaller bony pile located on a private farm about two miles east of Lilly.

Work was recently wrapped up on the refuse removal, a project that took about a month, said Ridge owner Ed Krevel.

The refuse was hauled to the Colver Power plant, Krevel said.