|
This news story originally provided by
The
Charleston Gazette
Need for valley fill not proven,
residents’ engineer says
By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer
Three years ago, Stephanie Connolly and her husband moved to
their house off U.S. 33 east of Elkins so they could live near
Shavers Fork, in the shadow of the Monongahela National Forest.
Now, the J.F. Allen Co. wants to move in right across the road.
Over the next 60 years, J.F. Allen hopes to blast and dig 70
million tons of limestone out of Pond Lick Mountain.
On Tuesday, Connolly and her Randolph County neighbors asked the
state Surface Mine Board to block the quarry.
“Right there is the quarry and the dust and the sound,” said
Connolly, a forest soil scientist. “You go to the national forest to
get away from that.”
In January, state Environmental Protection Secretary Stephanie
Timmermeyer approved J.F. Allen’s 190-acre permit application.
Two citizen groups, the Shavers Fork Coalition and the Bowden-Faulker
Citizens Protective Response appealed Timmermeyer’s decision.
During the opening day of hearings, DEP lawyer Tom Clarke and
company attorney Hank Lawrence downplayed any impacts the quarry
might have on local residents.
Clarke and Lawrence noted that the area is hardly pristine, with
several existing quarries, abandoned strip mines and a four-lane
highway.
In his opening, Clarke said there was no reason to worry about
the 2,100 feet of a Shavers Fork tributary that the quarry would
bury with waste rock and dirt.
The stream, Clarke said, is “only a damp spot on the ground.”
“This is an area with a history of quarrying,” Lawrence told the
mine board.
Jim Van Gundy, an Elkins resident and retired college science
professor, said that two of the nearby quarries have been mostly
inactive in his 30 years in the area.
“There is a point at which the recreation area is going to give
way and it’s going to become, eventually, an industrial area,” Van
Gundy testified.
In an opening statement, Lawrence said the company spent four
years trying to obtain a permit, and made numerous improvements at
the behest of DEP officials.
“J.F. Allen has been recognized as a leader in its industry,”
Lawrence said. “The DEP made the right conclusion in issuing this
permit.”
John Morgan, a mining engineer working for the residents, said
DEP engineer Clarence Wright told the mine board that the company
proposed, and the agency approved, a post-mining land use of
pastureland.
Morgan read from portions of the permit application that called
for a post-mining land use of “commercial woodland.”
Joe Lovett, an Appalachian Center for the Economy and Environment
lawyer who represents the citizens, noted that the application
proposed planting “a monoculture of locust trees.”
Morgan said the company’s permit application does not prove the
need for the valley fill. He also said that parts of the permit do
not include proper sediment control to keep runoff from pouring into
streams or an adjacent underground quarry.
“There will be no sediment control,” Morgan told the board.
Wright, the DEP engineer, said he could not explain exactly how
J.F. Allen would rebuild the stream that its valley fill will bury
once the quarry is completed.
“There’s not a lot of details in this application,” Wright said.
“They would do that at the time of reclamation.”
Another resident, Jim Bazzle, said his family has owned one
campground in the area along Shavers Fork since 1969.
Bazzle bought a second one — the state’s only Yogi Bear-Jellystone
Park Campground — a few years ago. Since then, he added a restaurant
and horse stables.
“We’ve enjoyed a steady growth in business, and I firmly believe
if this quarry opens it will have a great detrimental effect on my
business,” Bazzle told the board. “It’s just common sense that
industrial activity and tourism are not compatible.
“I’m not opposed to quarry operations. I’m not opposed to
businesses — I’m a businessman,” Bazzle said. “But they just aren’t
compatible in the same area.”
Lawrence and Clarke tried to block the residents from testifying,
by agreeing that the citizens had legal standing to appeal the
permit.
Lovett said the residents wanted the board members to hear
directly from them about their concerns.
Board Chairman Tom Michael allowed the residents to testify.
“One of the purposes of this board is to listen to citizens,”
Michael said.
Michael also cut off Lawrence when he tried to criticize Bazzle
because his campground discharges treated wastewater into Shavers
Fork.
“Unless you are going to go a step farther and show there are
some effluent violations or it’s affecting the trout fishery, I
believe it’s irrelevant,” Michael said.
Lovett said Lawrence’s questions were “an attempt to harass
citizens and make them unwilling to come and testify.”
The board hearing is scheduled to continue today.
To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call
348-1702.
|
