After June’s flooding, repairs to the Sibanye-Stillwater Mine road are nearly finished

Stillwater County, Montana – According to Stillwater County, Nye Road should be totally fixed within a few months. In June 2022, the road collapsed due to flooding.

“So, I would say, we’re just a few months away from having it completely repaired,” Chief of Emergency Services for Stillwater County David Stamey said.

According to Stamey, the mine is now replacing its tailing lines, which transport mine wastewater to a tailing pond.

“The mine is going to put the tailing lines back. So, what you saw back in the summer with the lines that were hanging across the road. They were taken out. So, now we’re at a point where we’ve actually built the road up enough that we can actually put those tailing lines back in, which trail from the mine site you see behind us, to their tailing pond just a few miles away.”

Stamey said that FEMA public assistance funds would cover 75% of the expense. The remaining 25% is handled by Stillwater County.

“This actually represents the largest single project in the flooding disaster from last year,” he added.

“So, just the extent of the collapse and how large it was, and the river entirely rechanneled over into where that collapse was,” he added. “So, it’s not just rebuilding and refilling, in essence, that road. You’re actually having to rechannel the river. And work through all of the permitting processes and all of the really extensive engineering that it takes to go into this kind of project.”

In addition, five parts of North Stillwater River Road have fallen as a result of the flood in June 2022, according to Stamey.

“We actually have started work on some of that to repair that as well through the public assistance process with FEMA,” he said.

“We’re having to work on each individual collapse,” he said. “And I think we’re making good progress on that as well.”