Quarry opponents join appeal

Groups also seeks help from Toepel, Mensch

The citizens group that has opposed the Gibraltar Rock quarry since it was first proposed 17 years ago has joined the township’s appeal of a state mining permit granted in July.

Paradise Watchdogs/Ban the Quarry are also soliciting the help of state elected officials in their effort.

In identical Aug. 20 letters sent to both state Sen. Bob Mensch, R-24th Dist, and state Rep. Marcy Toepel, R-147th Dist. — both of whom are up for reelection in November — the group pleaded with them for help

“We know you cannot intervene in the appeal, but there must be something you can do to protect the citizens and the waters of the Commonwealth: Swamp Creek, Scioto Creek, Perkiomen Creek, Schuylkill River,” Celeste Bish, president of Paradise Watchdogs, wrote in the letters to both legislators.

Pointing to the proximity of the contaminated groundwater site at the former Good’s Oil off Route 663 to the quarry site, and what the group and the township sees as the potential for quarry blasting and groundwater pumping to draw those chemicals into the open, Bish’s letter asks Mensch and Toepel to “author a bill to authorize the Commonwealth to condemn the (quarry’s) land and prevent further spread of these toxins to the people, the air, and the waters of the Commonwealth?”

The potential for those chemical contaminants to be drawn to the surface and discharged into an unnamed tributary of Swamp Creek as part of the quarry’s operation serves as a large portion of the objections for both the township and Paradise Watchdogs’ appeal of the mining permit.

The township’s appeal was filed July 31 with the Environmental Hearing Board, a state board staffed by five administrative law judges who oversee disputes with the DEP and will decide