Rutland Herald

OMYA reassures public on residue stockpiling

October 10, 2002
By ED BARNA Herald Correspondent

PITTSFORD — A proposed new method of stockpiling residues from the OMYA plant in Florence would not threaten the health or safety of residents, company officials told 15 people at an informal meeting Thursday.

In advance of an Act 250 application expected in the next month, plant manager Steven Thompson and environmental health and safety manager Thomas Sawyer showed maps of the project, described procedures and fielded questions.

They said state environmental officials had already reviewed the work of contracted engineers Heindel & Noyes and had given their approval.

Thompson said one of the best guarantees that OMYA will avoid or resolve any problems is that they have successfully gone through the International Standards Organization’s ISO 14,000 process.

This demanding, internationally recognized certification indicates that a company has identified all possible environmental impacts and has developed ways of dealing with them, he said.

Currently, OMYA is using an old pit known as the Dolomite Quarry for the materials that result when marble rocks from Wallingford and Middlebury are ground into fine particles to release their calcium carbonate, Sawyer said.

This is standard industry practice, he said — but the pit will be filled in the near future. To add another 10 years of operational life, the company wants to accumulate tailings above ground level on top of the filled quarry.

By the time the mound is closed and covered with trees and grass, it would be a hill 2,000 feet long, 700 feet wide, and 20 to 80 feet high, he said.

What concerned neighbors wasn’t the hill itself, but the runoff.

OMYA’s plan is to recapture anything that washes off the hill — it would be nearly impervious to water, Thomson said — by channeling it to a pipe that would lead to the Italian quarry they use to recycle water.

Asked about the possible impact to several wells, Thompson said Heindel & Noyes had done a study of the area’s geology and water flows. They had found the underground water doesn’t go straight down — a concern of one Whipple Hollow resident with a well — but rather takes a sideways course that will keep it away from the wells.

Resident Bill Niles asked why OMYA had never come to test his well, as they had promised when the question of the impact of the company’s processed water became an issue several years ago.

Thompson said that was because the engineers had put in test wells around the Dolomite Quarry, and those had showed no chemicals were headed his way. But OMYA would be glad to test his well anyway in the near future, he promised.

It was one of several instances in which he offered to help answer individual concerns — and he invited anyone with a problem to come to the OMYA plant.

Some of the chemicals the engineers found in the 22 years worth of quarry tailings might have been dangerous in quantity, such as toluene from an asphalt plant that preceded marble operations on the site, or acetone, which is involved in separating out ground calcium carbonate from impurities in a liquid mix.

But Thompson said the levels were in parts per billion — below the standards for drinking water. But the people who had come to the meeting, including two former OMYA workers, were still anxious.

Resident Linda Poro summed up by saying that in spite of plans, there are “these little things that happen.”

Beverly Peterson recalled a time when soap-like bubbles from the marble slurry took off and landed all over her property.

“It was very strange,” she said. “The dog freaked out.”

Thompson acknowledged there had been a problem, but it had not recurred in two years. Likewise, he promised that OMYA would work to resolve complaints about a bad, plastic-like smell from the plant and blasting damage to a foundation.

As for unknown chemicals that may be coming from the plant, Thompson said the company’s engineers use two standard tests, for organic and inorganic chemicals. Those tests pick up all types of pollutants on their charts as well as the ones that led to the testing, he said.

The state environmental study will be available as part of the Act 250 application, he said.