Zoning ruling on quarry expansion due in August.
After months of hearings, hours and hours of testimony and exhibits that number into the hundreds, the zoning hearings on the proposed expansion of the Gibraltar Rock Quarry north of Hoffmansville Road has concluded.
However, a decision is not expected from the zoning board until a meeting on Aug. 3.
Ever since Gibraltar Rock bought 18 acres from the Good family for $800,000 adjacent to the former Good’s Oil site in 2014, the question of a quarry’s impact on the groundwater pollution suspected and since confirmed there has been paramount in these deliberations.
The Good’s Oil site has since been identified by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection as the source of contamination of area wells that necessitated the installation of a $2 million public water system four years ago.
Since then, township officials have begun to question whether a quarry operation in GR IV would exacerbate the groundwater pollution at the site and spread it to other wells and into Swamp Creek, a tributary of Perkiomen Creek, which is a public drinking water source.
According to its plans, Gibraltar plans to pump the several thousand gallons of groundwater that will seep into the both quarry pits each day into a holding basin and then into an unnamed tributary of Swamp Creek.
In February, 2016, a hydrogeologist for Earth Res, the firm hired by Gibraltar This slide from earlier testimony shows the proposed north quarry’s proximity to the former Good’s Oil site, the source of extensive groundwater contamination in the area. Rock to assess the situation, testified that it is unlikely quarry operations would draw the contaminated groundwater out into the open, or into neighboring wells; and even if it did, that the company had plans to treat any contamination that escaped.
On April 6, he repeated that testimony “within a reasonable degree of scientific certainty.”
Rowan Keenan, attorney for the anti-quarry group Paradise Watchdogs, pointed to earlier letters Vittorio had written that seemed to contradict more recent testimony about how the groundwater will behave at the site, in an apparent attempt to convince the zoning board that Vittorio’s scientific certainty may not be so certain.
In fact, the zoning hearing board has heard from two other experts — one hired by the township and one hired by the Paradise Watchdogs — who both testified the risk of the groundwater pollution being pulled in by the quarry’s pumping is higher than the company is conceding.
The hearings have also dealt with questions of a bond Gibraltar is required to post to ensure the two quarry sites will be cleaned up once quarrying is complete, or should the company go out of business.
“You’re not going to end up with this big contaminated pit and an out of business company,” Vittorio assured the zoning board.
However, the township’s special attorney for the case, Robert Brant, pointed out that the costs for closing down the site are all clearly enumerated in the bond application with the glaring exception of the costs required to clean up any contamination.
In the meantime, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has required Gibraltar to secure a new mining permit from its office in Pottsville, and a new discharge permit — called an NPDES permit — from its office in Norristown.
The discharge permit governs the water Gibraltar will pump out into the stream and the draft of that permit was debated, with Brant pointing out that the state has set no limit yet for one of the two most worrisome pollutants, called 1,4 dioxane.
Stephen Harris, the attorney for Gibraltar, said he expects that discharge permit to be issued in the next two months and that those limits will likely be set in the final permit document.
As for the original quarry, known as GR-1, it is located south of Hoffmansville Road and is awaiting a new mining permit from DEP.
However, before digging can begin, Gibraltar must obtain final site plan approval from the board of supervisors.
In June of 2015, the supervisors voted 3-2 to grant preliminary site plan approval to the original quarry site, but final approval is required before the Silvi Group, which owns Gibraltar Rock, can open up the ground and begin extracting rock.
DEP is meanwhile continuing with its investigation and clean-up of the former Good’s Oil site, which is located at 344 Layfield Road.
In July, a concrete vault with about 8,000 gallons of polluted sludge was discovered on the site and the sludge extracted and burned to destroy the contaminants.
In December, DEP held a public hearing on the subject.
One month after the
“You’re not going to end up with this big contaminated pit and an out of business company.” Louis Vittorio, quarry hydrogeologist
discovery of that pit, DEP reached a monetary settlement agreement with Ethan Good through which trusts he controls will repay the $2.3 million cost of providing public water to the homes whose wells were contaminated from the material on his property.
Good is also required to pay the DEP $7,000 per month to cover the evermounting costs of further cleanup of the site.