BEGINNING OF QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
AUDIENCE: Ken Bushee down in Danby. I would just like a clarification on one issue that you
brought up that a lot of people have asked me about and that's blasting. And you said from
10:00 to 4. I know that you don't blast totally from 10:00 all the way to 4. Would you please
define that a little more closely so that people will understand that the blasting does not take
place for six hours during the day?
MR. McNEIL: Okay. Mr. Bushee has asked a clarification on the hours of blasting between
which were stated to be 10 to 4. Is that right? You want a clarification?
AUDIENCE: I want a clarification of how much time the blast actually takes.
MR. REDDY: When I said 10 to 4, yeah, when I said -- what I meant to say, and if I didn't get it
out is, we'll blast two to three times a week. Each blast lasts for a few seconds. What I meant
was we would not do it before 10:00 nor after 4:00. That's the time frame we're limiting it to.
Even though the quarry is open for a couple more hours on each end, we're limiting it to more the
middle of the day for a lot of reasons; one of which is it's just safer to do it when the sun is up.
But that's -- we won't be waking you up in the middle of the morning and each blast only lasts a
couple of seconds.
MR. McNEIL: Next? The gentleman. Clyde, Ceil.
AUDIENCE: I live on Baker Brook and I'd like to know how you're going to purify waste water
coming down the brook.
MR. McNEIL: The question is how will OMYA purify the waste water that may come from
the mine whether it's on -- I'm assuming you mean whether it's on just Baker Brook or
everywhere.
AUDIENCE: Baker Brook.
MR. McNEIL: Baker Brook. Okay.
MR. REDDY: Okay. I'll ask John to fill in a little bit more on this one, but I'll give you a quick
answer. Basically the quarry that we're going to be operating here we don't really use water other
than as a dust suppressant. We'll have a water truck going up and down the road and they'll be
some water sprays in the quarry and it's just used as a dust suppressant, so there's no water in
the process. Obviously there could be rain water coming on the property, but we don't really --
it's just a dust suppressant. We're not big users of water in this quarry. It's not like the
processing plant. Don, maybe you want to expand on that.
MR. BURNS: My name is Don Burns and I've worked as a geologist for OMYA for the past 22
years.
AUDIENCE: We can't hear you.
MR. BURNS: My name is Don Burns. Can you hear that? I worked as a geologist for OMYA
for the past 22 years. With regard to the water perhaps going into Baker Brook, as Jim said, the
water requirements at the quarry will basically be limited to dust suppression, but there will be
water exiting the property, and in order for us to do that, we will be required to obtain a discharge
permit from the state. And typically discharge permits require that the water leaving the
property be of a certain quality and, I mean, the waters naturally occurring on site percolating
through the marble, it's good water. The issues that the state typically would be concerned about
would be the total suspended solids, the torpidity and pH of the water. And we, in order to
comply with the permit, we would have to monitor the quality of the water leaving that site to
make sure that it met state specifications. We do this at our other quarries and have never had a
problem being out of compliance with the quality of our water leaving our site.
MR. McNEIL: We don't have a lot of room up here so this dance you see going on. Yes, ma'am?
And your name.
AUDIENCE: Lavina O'Connor (ph.)
MR. McNEIL: And you're from Danby?
AUDIENCE: I'm a taxpayer in Danby.
MR. McNEIL: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: Just to go back to the blasting, how many months or years is that going to go on
blasting and how far will you hear it?
MR. McNEIL: How long will the blasting go on in terms of months or years, and I didn't hear
the last part.
AUDIENCE: The sound of the blasting; how far will that carry?
MR. McNEIL: And how far will the sound of the blast carry. John?
MR. REDDY: Okay. Well, the blasting will go on during the life of the quarry and our proposed
life is 50 years, so it will go on a couple times a week for 50 years. Initially we will be up
obviously on the surface. One of the reasons that we can have such a very small quarry here, the
hole will only be 23 acres, is this is a rather unusual part of the deposit. The geology of this state
was it got crunched when the plates came together and it's tripled the thickness of normal so
we're going to be in the same area for a long time going down. That means after the first couple of
years, we're going to be digging down into a hole and the blasts will not be nearly as audible, but I
don't know how -- if we've done any studies. I haven't thought of that. We have no studies yet
on the sound as far as.
AUDIENCE: I live in front of the Danby Marble Quarry.
MR. McNEIL: I don't know who is talking since I can't see. If you want to ask a question, I'll
take it as a question and you can do it that way.
AUDIENCE: I was just going to make a comment as far as the noise level and that the blasting
behind us on Danby quarry this summer and I didn't hear anything and I live right in front of it.
MR. McNEIL: That's fine. Another. Ron?
AUDIENCE: My name is Ronnie Newman. I live in Danby and pay taxes there. I'm in great
admiration of the speaker's concerns for the environment and the question is simply this: How
long will it take the mountain to recapitulate itself after it's been destroyed?
MR. McNEIL: Your question is how long will the mountain take to recapitulate?
AUDIENCE: To redo itself.
MR. McNEIL: To redo itself.
AUDIENCE: To grow back. I would like to know how long it will take for a defaced piece of
beauty to get back to the way it was before it was decimated.
MR. McNEIL: We will give them a chance to answer that.
MR. REDDY: Okay. One answer I have is I'm very proud of what the places I'm worked in the
past. When we -- I'm not a native Vermonter which is maybe a disadvantage. I came here
recently earlier this year. I've been president out in California for nine years as was mentioned
earlier. We operate in several national forests in California. The San Bernadino National Forest
is one of the places that we have two of our quarries that are operating. The San Bernadino
National Forest has the most visitor days of any national forest in the United States. It's right
outside of the L.A. basin. We have a disadvantage in California in this quarry because we don't
get nearly so much rain so it's hard to get things to grow. I'm extremely proud of the fact that our
quarry is the one when anybody comes out from Washington to visit any 1 national
forest site in the west, and I'm not exaggerating, when they have anybody coming out to the west,
they bring them to one of our quarries. It's called the Sentinal Quarry. Because we have done the
best job of anybody. We recently had the grandson of the founder of the national forest service
come out for a tour of the west with an entourage of about twenty people and most of them were
the top people from the national forest in Washington. They visited one operation in -- one
operation in the west specifically to look at reclamation. They looked at the other issues they
were looking at was trees in the forest and other, ski areas. They looked at one quarry in the
west. That was OMYA's quarry. We have done a terrific job. I can't tell you it's going to look
exactly the way it did before. This quarry in California does not look exactly the way it did
before. We're extracting something from the mountain. We're extracting a precious resource from
the mountain which is actually mentioned in Act 250 as a precious resource that should be made
available for the use of the people. I mean, we need it. It's in our bones. But our company I
think has done the best job of anybody. The best I know. If the people from Washington when
they come out to look at a forest and want to look at reclamation, they come to our operation. I
think that speaks very well for our company. And I guarantee you we're going to have the same
kind of quality standards back here. We've done-- I think we already have. The reclamation that
we've done up here in the past years up in Middlebury if you want to see some of our
reclamation areas is terrific. I think we've done a fantastic job. We have farmers back farming the
property that used to be a quarry. And the quarry that I'm referring to in the national forest in
the west is visible. It's on a mountain. It's in the middle of a big recreation area. And, as a matter
of fact, I just thought of one other thing. We work with the national forest out there in a lot of
ways. And one of the things they actually charge people. It's a fundraiser for the forest service
in the summer for 13 weeks. In the summer they came to us and asked if we would run tours
with them. They charged people $25 to come visit our quarries. We donate the time and give
them the tour. We show them the quarry. We show them the reclamation area because they
want the people to see the reclamation area and then we give them a tour of the plant. But we get
about 12 people every week that the forest service is charging 25 bucks for. We're not -- it's
something to really be proud of. I think we do a great job on reclamation and we're going to do it
here. We have been doing it here. Sorry. I got emotional.