Published: April 29, 2007 11:31 pm      

Lilly residents oppose path of coal-refuse trucks

LILLY — An Ebensburg-area company’s plan to haul thousands of tons of coal refuse from two sites in Washington Township has hit a pothole.

Lilly residents living in the area of Piper Street want the parent company of The Colver Power Project to find an alternate route.

Keep out an estimated 30 trucks daily hauling to the Ebensburg-area power plant, they say.

The residents say it would be good to see the unsightly refuse piles gone.

But the price they will have to pay – rumbling trucks, with soot and dust and the safety fears about Piper Street – is a cost they are not willing to pay.

“I’m not opposed to cleaning it up. But there are a lot of different concerns,” Piper Street resident Jack Barlick said. “They seem pretty well entrenched in the idea of using Piper Street.”

Barlick – along with neighbors Bill Wheldon, Tony Smith, John Inman and Jim Yingling – outlined their concerns last week on the corner of Piper and Jones streets below a sign showing Piper with a 10-ton weight limit.

“The dirt and the dust will be terrible. I have breathing problems,” Barlick said.

Wheldon has concerns about the integrity of the Piper Street bridge built in 1938.

Inman points to the narrow width of Piper Street, about 30-feet wide.

“It can’t take two trucks passing,” he said.

Smith and Yingling fear that, despite promises from Colver Power, the truckers will speed on the residential street.

“They are independent truckers and, if they can’t make a run, they can’t make a living,” Yingling said.

The five are urging the 50 homeowners on Piper, in the Dogtown area and others to be at Tuesday’s 6 p.m. Lilly council meeting, where they hope to convince borough leaders to pressure Colver Power to find another route.

At the meeting, council is to consider an excessive maintenance agreement stipulating what Colver Power will do to repair any damage to the posted roads. The trucks, Smith said, can weigh up to 35 tons loaded.

A similar agreement could come up at Washington Township on Wednesday, Supervisor Ray Guzic said.

“Nobody wants to see the truck traffic. But once those piles are out of there, it will have been worth putting up with some trucks,” Guzic said.

The co-gen plant has leases with Cooney Bros. Coal Co. of Cresson and the C.A. Hughes estate to remove decades-old bony piles on 40 acres in Washington Township east of Lilly.

They want to haul an estimated 650,000 cubic yards to the plant to be burned to create energy.

The actual site size – pending a state Department of Environmental Protection permit – is 87 acres. The current proposal is for the trucks to pass the Memorial Park ballfields, site of the AAABA playoff games each August.

Plans outlined by company officials call for trucks to travel township roads for a short distance, pick up Piper, onto Route 53 through Lilly to Route 22 and west to the power plant.

Barlick and others argue that 60 or more trucks will travel through town each day, with many returning with fly ash from the co-gen plant to provide a high alkaline material to aid in site reclamation.

A little math, said Barlick, shows that 75,000 trucks will come through during the life of the project.

Operations could start by fall and last five years, said Jeffrey Zick, an official with Inter-Power/AhlCon, parent company of The Colver Power Project.

One idea is to develop a route east of town through an area of a half-dozen homes known as Lilly Coal.

Smith said the route, now partially paved, could be developed for trucks to travel through a sparsely populated area to Cresson Township’s Eger Road, to Lilly Level Road and old Route 22.

A temporary stream crossing would have to be built near the largest of the bony sites regardless of what route is taken, Lilly Councilman Hubba Patterson said.

“I’m not in favor of them using Piper Street. But show me another way, and we’ll look at it,” he said.

Patterson questions the feasibility of the route proposed by the residents, which he thinks involves private property.

As for the Piper Street bridge, Patterson said a recent inspection showed it to be OK, and PennDOT told the borough to remove the 25-ton weight limit signs.