Wednesday, August 11, 2010
BY TERESA EDMOND
Suburban Trends
STAFF WRITER
The Borough Council has made the renewal of a three-year operation license for a controversial local quarry under specific circumstances official by memorializing their decision.
For example, the quarry must submit certain paperwork to accompany its renewal application. Also, it won't be allowed to excavate below 370 feet in most of its property. Residents had voiced concerns that excavating below 370 feet could jeopardize local water, but quarry attorney Jerome Vogel had argued that a 1996 consent order allows the quarry to dig deeper than that.
At its July 20 meeting, the council approved what Borough Attorney Richard J. Clemack called a "memorializing resolution," a follow-up resolution that offers more detail about the documents Saddle Mountain LP has already submitted to the borough and about those that are still needed. Saddle Mountain is in charge of the quarry on West Brook Road and applied for license renewal in December 2008.
Clemack said that the resolution attempts to provide some background about "what documents were considered, what documents were part of the approval, and what's left for the quarry to do."
After more than a year of public hearings and back-and-forth correspondence, the Borough Council granted Saddle Mountain a three-year permanent operation license on June 24 with an oral resolution, Clemack said. According to the memorializing resolution, the three-year license would extend from June 24 of this year to June 23, 2013. Saddle Mountain's three-year license expired last June, but the Borough Council continued to grant temporary extensions until issues were ironed out.
Saddle Mountain was required to hand in a well-monitoring report, a rehabilitation report and a mining report, among the documents listed in the adopted resolution. The rehabilitation plan would depict the restoration of the quarry's topography and water features when operations cease. The mining report would show depths of excavation within the quarry in relation to the 370-foot level limit.
Saddle Mountain was required to send in a monitoring well plan by July 24 of this year.
The resolution also clarified that the quarry should halt operations below 370 feet, except for where the water feature – represented as a pond – is located.
In addition to the depth limit, 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. 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.
E-mail: edmond@northjersey.com