Sunday, June 27, 2010
BY TERESA EDMOND
Suburban Trends
STAFF WRITER
After over a year of public hearings and back-and-forth correspondence, the Borough Council has granted Saddle Mountain a three-year permanent license to operate in its quarry.
However Saddle Mountain, the company in charge of the quarry located on West Brook Road, is required to hand in a well- monitoring report within 30 days, and a mining and a quarry rehabilitation report 60 days from June 24.
At a special June 24 council meeting, the council voted to grant Saddle Mountain a renewed license dated from June 24 of this year to June 23, 2013. Saddle Mountain's three-year license expired last June, but the Borough Council has been granting temporary extensions.
"The reason I'm voting yes is because the monitoring wells are being put in, and the rehabilitation plan is being done," said Councilwoman Linda Schaefer. "I hope the quarry will do right by the residents now and abide by this, because I don't want to feel as though I have to kick myself a year from now for voting yes."
Councilwoman Donna Anderson wanted to change the motion so the three-year license would hark back to last June, but the council voted this down.
Controversy has surrounded the 370-foot mark in the quarry, the depth limit imposed on digging. Residents say that digging below that would pollute local waters. Quarry attorney Jerome Vogel said a 1996 consent order allows the quarry to dig below this level.
"If we didn't have the 370 foot issue, this (the relicensing) would have been resolved a year ago," Borough Attorney Richard Clemack said.
In addition to the 370-foot level, there were problems with what Stanley Puszcz, vice president of H2M Group in Parsippany, described as insufficient documentation included in the quarry's relicensing application. This includes a water quality hydrological and geological study and Saddle Mountain's explanation, if provided, of why it wants to operate below 370 feet. The borough hired H2M Group to ensure the quarry is in compliance with municipal ordinances.
Saddle Mountain purchased the quarry from Van Orden Sand & Gravel in 1990 and operates the quarry as Van Orden in name only.
At the June 24 meeting, Vogel said Saddle Mountain would submit a well-monitoring plan 30 days from the June 24 date. However, a mining report could take longer, he said – 60 days. The mining report would show depths of excavation within the quarry in relation to the 370-foot level. Vogel said the quarry doesn't have to do either report per borough ordinance, but "in order to settle this issue of 370 once and for all, we're willing to do the mining study.
"We have to go back and look at the whole quarry," Vogel said. "We have to have geologists take a look at it. We have to have mining experts see how we'll operate."
The borough also wants the quarry to submit a rehabilitation plan within 60 days, which would depict restoration of the quarry's topography and water features when operations cease.
Jon Berry, president of environmental group Skylands CLEAN, has been keeping tabs on quarry operations for almost two decades. He said "there are some very positive things" regarding the council's ruling. The "positives" include well monitoring requirements and abiding by the 370 foot level.
"(There's) the understanding that excavation below 370 should be limited to specific areas, whereas before the quarry would have gone below," he said.
One of Berry's concerns is the size of the "water feature" as represented by a pond in the quarry. The bigger the pond is, the more material has been excavated in the quarry, he said.
"It should be as small as possible," he said.
E-mail: edmond@northjersey.com