Rutland Herald

OMYA’s business tactics are criticized at conference

June 7, 2002
By BRUCE EDWARDS Herald Staff

TINMOUTH — French and Canadian opponents of OMYA Thursday night painted a picture of tenacious and often bullying multinational company that refuses to abide by the wishes of the communities in which it does business.

More than 200 people packed the Tinmouth Community Center to attend what was billed as “A Global Summit on OMYA.” The event was sponsored by Vermonters for A Clean Environment, a group vehemently opposed to OMYA’s plans to build a marble quarry in neighboring Danby.

OMYA opponents said there are striking similarities with the problems communities in other parts of the world have encountered with OMYA.

In Vingrau, a village of 400 in the south of France near the Spanish border, residents fought what turned out to be a losing 10-year battle to stop OMYA, despite the overwhelming opposition of the village that is heavily dependent on winemaking and tourism.

Vingrau’s battle was marked by protests that drew international support from environmental groups. A Power Point presentation chronicled the year-by-year struggle based on the book written by former Vingrau resident Monique Balayer, who attended the conference with her husband, Phillippe.

Renaud Chastagnol, deputy mayor of Vingrau, prefaced his remarks with caution, noting that he and other residents had run-ins with the company before.

“I have been fined quite often by OMYA …. for defamation,” Chastagnol said. “Therefore, I will be mild in my speech.”

He related how, over the year, he and his wife were harassed and threatened for their opposition to OMYA’s quarry.

“(There were) anonymous phone calls to me and my wife and that my house would be set on fire,” he said, noting he could not prove OMYA or its supporters were behind the threats or the repeated vandalism to his car.

Chastagnol stressed that OMYA is not a company that gives up, preferring long and drawn-out legal battles. He speculated that OMYA is afraid of losing a battle “because it could set a precedent somewhere else.”

He accused the French government of caving in to OMYA, subverting the permitting process and changing environmental laws that removed a rare species of plant found in the quarry area from the endangered list to accommodate the company.

OMYA often cited job creation when making a case for its quarry in Vingrau. But Chastagnol said he has seen no evidence of that.

“OMYA is pretending to create jobs, but I can tell you this is not the truth,” he said, noting the automated nature of the business.

Former Vingrau resident Phillipe Balayer made a sometimes impassioned speech to the standing-room-only audience about how the democratic process in France was subverted to please the company.

He related how the French government sent in the military to break up one of the many protests at the quarry site “as if we were as dangerous as al-Qaida terrorists.”

Balayer, who said he and his wife left Vingrau for Costa Rica in large part because of the OMYA affair, urged the audience not to let government take away their rights.

“Your battle is our battle. We are all Vermonters,” he said to a standing ovation.

Canadian opponents have waged their own battle, citing environmental concerns about OMYA’s intention to withdraw large amounts of water from the tiny Tay River in Perth, Ontario, for its calcium carbonate slurry product.

On appeal, opponents were able to persuade the Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal to limit the withdrawal to 390,000 gallons a day compared to the 1.2 million gallons the company had sought. OMYA, in turn, has appealed that decision arguing that several government agencies and independent studies have concluded the withdrawal has proper safeguards and is environmentally responsible.

Michael Cassidy, retired minister of Parliament, said the appeal of OMYA’s original water-taking permit was a long and uncomfortable process.

“The appeal that we thought would take five or six days ... went on for 35 days over several months,” Cassidy said.

Not only were he and his wife concerned about the water withdrawal, but also with the expansion of the quarry near their vacation home. According to Cassidy, if OMYA extracted its permitted 4 million tons a year, it would mean 100,000 round-trips a year, or 600 round-trips a day, or a truck passing by every two or three minutes.

While the opponents prevailed on the water issue, Cassidy said the appeal board refused to hear arguments on the issue of trucks, ruling it wasn’t germane.

“People’s needs need to be addressed and need to be considered. Nobody said shut down OMYA,” Cassidy said.

But he added that OMYA needs to accept the fact that it needs to consider its neighbors, something he said the company has shown a great reluctance to do.

Another Canadian, Carol Dillon, urged the audience to get involved and to move from solving problems to preventing problems.

In Danby, more than two years ago, OMYA announced its intentions to build a quarry on a 33-acre site on a ridge overlooking the valley. The plans were immediately opposed by VCE, which said the project was inappropriate for the rural community.

Specifically, VCE cited a litany of problems: environmental problems with nearby wetlands, aesthetic problems with the location, blasting, and dust, transportation problems with trucking the marble ore off the mountain using narrow roads that weren’t meant to handle the daily traffic of large trucks.

OMYA is conducting environmental studies, including hydrology tests on the quarry site. The company said it has no timetable for filing an Act 250 permit.

OMYA executive vice president James Reddy said this week the company had no interest in attending the VCE event. But he said previously the company is working to try to address community concerns in Danby.

The company’s problems aren’t limited to Danby. A more pressing issue for OMYA is increasing the amount of marble it can ship from its Middlebury quarry to the calcium carbonate plant in Florence. The company has lost several legal appeals in an attempt to overturn state-imposed limits on the number of company trucks that can haul marble along Route 7.

OMYA has said it needs to expand its worldwide operations to meet demand for its product, which is a key mineral used in the paint, paper, plastics, chemical and rubber industries.

Founded in 1884 by Gottfried Pluess and his wife Emma Staufer, OMYA is the world’s largest producer of calcium carbonate and talc. The company has 7,000 employees and operates 130 plants in 30 countries. Since 1940, the privately held company has been controlled by Max Schachenmann and his family.

Contact Bruce Edwards at bruce.edwards@rutlandherald.com