QUARRY REJECTS ENERGY FIRM’S PROPOSED DAM
COLEBROOKDALE >> Dump trucks loaded with stones were lined up and drivers waited to roll over a scale on a recent afternoon at the bustling Martin Stone Quarries in Colebrookdale Township.
The trucks haul away loads of granite-gneiss stones of various sizes for blacktop, concrete or as the foundation of construction projects.
A stone crusher shatters large rocks into smaller ones and the bits are shaken through screens that sort them by size. A maze of conveyor belts hoists rocks of similar sizes through the air and drops them into neat piles.
Jumbo dump trucks move large loads around.
“We are an active quarry,” said Trevor Martin, owner of Martin Stone, a provider of rock for PennDOT.
But another company that aims to build numerous electricity-producing dams across Pennsylvania envisioned the quarry underwater.
Doylestown-based Renewable Energy Aggregators approached Martin Stone in a February phone call about a plan to flood the quarry and create two reservoirs — covering a combined 58 acres and holding 191 million gallons of water — to operate a pumped storage dam. Martin wasn’t enthusiastic. “A dam is not feasible at an active quarry. We see a long life ahead,” Martin said.
Digging into proposal
A pumped storage dam has an upper and lower reservoir. As water falls from one reservoir to the other, it turns electric-producing turbines. An elevator carries water back to the top and the cycle continues, providing renewable energy.
Martin is interested in renewable energy, and feels the quarry could be in that business in the future, perhaps as a site for solar panels, for instance. That is why he agreed to listen to what Re
newable Energy had to say.
“We were still processing the conversation when a few weeks later, before we spoke again, the township called to ask about it,” Martin said. “We were surprised to learn from the township that there had already been filings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.”
Adam Rousselle of Renewable Energy Aggregators had not mentioned the filings, Martin said.
Rousselle refused to be quoted for this story or answer any questions on the record.
In January, about a month before first talking to Martin, Renewable Energy had filed documents with the commission seeking permission for a feasibility study about a dam on the quarry’s land.
The application said Renewable Energy’s proposed Bechtelsville Pumped Storage Hydro Project would be in the public interest because it would help Pennsylvania reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and that Renewable Energy intends to obtain and maintain proprietary rights necessary to construct, operate or maintain the project.
The phrase “in the public interest” implies that the property could be taken through eminent domain. If the commission is convinced the project is in the public interest, it could force the sale of the private property for public use.
Martin said he asked the commission and was told that while it is unlikely, eminent domain would not be off the table in such a situation.
“We met with them (Renewable Energy) in April and at that point we said we had no interest (in participating) at the current time,” Martin said. “They said they would withdraw the application.”
But months later, Renewable Energy had not withdrawn.
That made Martin nervous, because such a project could put an end to the three-generation business that was started in 1953 and still has years of capacity.
Rousselle would not speak on the record about his intentions for the withdrawal, but Thursday sent a one-sentence letter to the federal agency withdrawing the permit application.
Many projects under study
The Renewable Energy Aggregators website was last updated in June 2018.
It describes 37 permit applications with FERC across the country, with at least 19 in Pennsylvania, all for feasibility studies for pumped storage hydroelectric projects.
The company previously worked under the name Merchant Hydro Developers. Under that name in 2017, the company obtained eight active preliminary permits to conduct feasibility studies, seven in Pennsylvania and one in New York.
Under the name Renewable Energy Aggregators in 2019, the company received four more active preliminary permits from the commission. The permits give a company priority over the site and allow up to three years to study a possible project area.
During that time, no other company is allowed to pursue a project there, a commission spokeswoman said. Companies with this permit must file a report with the commission every six months to show progress on the study or risk losing its permit.
Renewable Energy also has two pending preliminary permits under consideration by the commission, one in Pennsylvania and one in Georgia, for a total of 14 projects with active or pending preliminary permits for a preliminary study.