MR. McNEIL: Sir?
AUDIENCE: Allen Busch. Have studies been made of the range and magnitude of the seismic
vibrations in the mine area? Question two; do you have access of what is the instantaneous and
decay as qualified of the noise level specific to the site area and the promulgation of that noise is
simply dependent upon abstract disturbances and things. I'm interested an, aside from the Act
250 requirement, what is your outlook of peak noise at site level and, three, if you're not willing
or able to answer these questions tonight, are you willing to share the answer to these questions
prior to the submission of Act 250 so that we, members of the town, can act in an informal way
to make decisions when we vote on such issues. Thank you.
MR. McNEIL: Mr. Busch, I need some help here. Your first question has the study been done
of the decibel level of the blasting?
AUDIENCE: First question is information currently available that they'll share with us for an
estimate of the range and magnitude of the seismic vibrations specific to the site area. In other
words, I live on the other side of their hill here.
MR. McNEIL: Okay.
AUDIENCE: That's a half a mile.
MR. McNEIL: So the question is: Has there been a study done of the range and magnitude of
the blast area.
AUDIENCE: Seismic vibration.
MR. McNEIL: Relative to the seismic vibrations. And the third one is will you share the study
before they apply for their Act 250 if they have it; right?
AUDIENCE: Two was noise.
MR. McNEIL: I was hoping they got that one.
AUDIENCE: They have experts in that area at the table and I was hoping they can answer
those.
MR. REDDY: I just checked with Don just to make sure. We are doing the studies. We don't
have the answers yet. Well, I can't help it. It takes time to do these studies. If we don't have
them, I can't give you the number, but I don't have they have either so the process has to wait for
the answers.
AUDIENCE: (Inaudible.)
MR. REDDY: Pardon me?
AUDIENCE: No experts at the time.
MR. REDDY: Actually, I can tell you I have recently -- I'm also we have operations out in the
west. We have recently done a seismic and a noise study in a quarry that we're opening. We've
opened in the Tonto National Forest in Arizona. We're approximately one mile from a national
wilderness area, and one of the things we had to check was the decibel level at the wilderness
boundary, wilderness areas. I don't know if we have any here in Vermont, but you can't have
motorized vehicles, you can't have anything. And the criteria was we could not affect the decibel
level by two decibels. This was a mile, mile and a half away from the quarry. This is the same
kind of an operation. Drilling, blasting. And our impact is less than two decibels. We have
studies from in the west and I've got the studies on the impact from the blasting and the
vibration. You hesitate to quote something from California on that because you know the ground
is different. Grounds are going to transmit, so we have to do the study specific to this site and
specific to the geology you have here. Rocks fracture differently. We are doing the studies. I
know we have done them out west. I know we're doing them here. I know some anecdotal stuff
from out west. But I don't have -- you have to wait until you have the specific site. The sound,
you have to look at the valley, how the sound travels in the valley and the feeling in the ground.
You have to look at the specific geology. That's why we have other studies from other locations,
but they don't really apply here. You have to do the site specific study here. Did I miss one of
them?
MR. McNEIL: The last one. Will you share the studies when you get them before the Act 250
permit process.
MR. REDDY: Never thought of that one. Why don't you see me after, give me your name and
number and we can talk any time you want.
AUDIENCE: It's not me as an individual. It's us as a town. We need that to go to us prior to
your 250. We would like to.
MR. REDDY: Prior to the 250 permit, I would assume we will be back here talking again with
information.
AUDIENCE: Because you have no information tonight so far.
MR. REDDY: No, because the studies are all being done. My guess is I'd like to come back and
talk if you want to have us back.
AUDIENCE: Why did you call the meeting if you have no studies?
MR. McNEIL: Is somebody -- we can't -- I'm sorry, but the acoustics, we can't tell who is
talking unless -- who was that? -- okay. Mr. Sharon?
AUDIENCE: My name is John Sharon. I live on Tinmouth Road. I have a pretty simple
question you should able to answer. All your crushers make noise. How far does it travel?
MR. McNEIL: That was asked earlier I think. How far will the crushers --
MR. REDDY: Yeah. Well, we had a lady here in the audience said she couldn't hear it and she's
right -- do we have -- How far does the sound travel from one of the crushers now? For this
specific -- well, for this specific quarry we will have to look at the sound people and study the
shape of the valley and everything. Those of you driving down Route 7 there's a crusher
operating at the South Wallingford quarry. Those of you that are driving north on Route 7 you're
driving right near the Middlebury quarry. Stop the car and see if you can hear anything.
AUDIENCE: Yes, I can.
MR. REDDY: Okay. Then you have an idea of what it's going to sound like.
MR. McNEIL: Phil then Nick then --
AUDIENCE: Phil Hodge. I'm in Danby here. Jim, I'm one of those that haven't made up my
mind yet about this, but I'm really against it because I don't see any reason to be for it. I was
hoping that you might come here tonight and tell us some of the benefits of getting on board with
OMYA and supporting this quarry. Put yourself in my place. You've got ten people up here.
They're experts. OMYA has been a leader company you tell us. We prefer this not to be an
adversarial situation. I was surprised that you went out and asked people what their concerns
were. I would assume as a leader company you would know what people would be concerned
about. So my question, or I guess I'm asking you to have your set of experts act on behalf of the
community at the moment and say, These are the things that might somehow impact the
community. We can see from the picture visually it's going to be an impact. What other impacts
might there be? We talked about the trucks that you're concerned about and we should be
concerned about. Blasting. I guess what we need to do ultimately is put together a list of pros
and cons to come to some conclusion. And I haven't heard any pros yet. You eluded to some
jobs or something. Maybe there's some economic package that you'll want to offer the town. I
don't know. But could you at least tell us what potential cons there might be so we can, from
your experience as a company and your panel of experts here, what things might you be
concerned about that might impact the town so that we don't have to sit here and keep conjuring
things up.
MR. McNEIL: Okay. So you're asking them to tell us what is the downside.
AUDIENCE: The downside, that's right.
MR. McNEIL: Of the quarry from their point of view.
AUDIENCE: Sound. What else?
MR. McNEIL: Did everybody hear that question? MR. REDDY: Well, I think the questions
that have been asked tonight are pretty well clarifying again the same concerns that we heard
when we went out and interviewed people in the community. You're asking, the people out here
have been asking the questions that are the concerns of theirs which is pretty much the same ones
we heard before so I can't -- you've heard all the questions of where the community is concerned.
AUDIENCE: I was hoping you could kind of summarize for us. We've gone on for a while.
Maybe we missed some. You've got all your experts here. What else might we be concerned
about?
MR. REDDY: I think you guys have hit all of them as near as I can tell. You've asked the
questions that are the questions pretty much that -- actually, it's not just your concerns. We
didn't find any big surprises when we went out and interviewed people. You asked why we
didn't know what the questions were, what the concerns would be. We pretty much felt we
knew what the questions would be. But might as well find out what specific concerns were.
There were some -- you know, there was a question one of the farmers about his cows that
cross the road every day a couple of times a day. I wouldn't have known that without asking
somebody. That's one of his questions. So I think it did serve some purpose to try to ask the
people, What are your specific concerns here? We've opened enough quarries in enough places to
know what the general people are concerned about. And it isn't just us. Act 250 addresses just
about everything that people could be concerned about. So we have to do all the studies to
address those questions. We got the general questions. We're trying to find out is there anything
that we're missing here. That's why we went out and asked people the questions. That's why
we're having meetings like this. I like to find out and make sure we are trying to address
everything we can so we can come up to you with the best solution and on balance show you
what the benefits are. How are we going to mitigate the concerns? I believe there are benefits,
and we're going to show them to you in the permit application. Economic studies. Some people
have made the supposition without the facts. I'm trying not to make- I'm trying not -- I sense the
frustration that I'm not giving you a lot of answers. We're trying to answer what we know, but a
lot of the things that are the outside consultants and outside experts that we've had to hire as part
of the 250 permit process. We have to wait for their answer. I don't want to prejudge their
answer. I don't want to tell you exactly what truck route we're going to use. I don't want to tell
you we're going to use trucks because I've told the consultants and the experts, You tell us how
we ought to transport this stuff and open your minds. Look at the possibilities. So if I prejudge
everything and tell you, Here's what we're going to do in this case, why do we bother hiring the
experts? Why don't we wait for them to come back and tell us here's the way you ought to do it.
And part of that process they've heard all the questions or they've got the rest of them or the
specifics, but we've given them the specifics. Here's the things that people are concerned about.
What can we do to address those concerns? Then we'll have a package that we can giveto you.
AUDIENCE: Can I just have a simple follow up to that?
MR. McNEIL: Yes.
AUDIENCE: Are you suggesting that you're coming back at some point? I know we requested
this informational hearing. When do you anticipate coming back to Danby and explain the whole
things so that we can make some conclusions?
MR. REDDY: I guess I could suggest we can keep in touch with George and.
MR. McNEIL: The selectmen.
MR. REDDY: The selectmen and let you know when the studies are done and then we can come
back here and talk when we have a lot more information. My anticipation is, as I said, is late fall
which gets us into the holiday season. If you want to give us a time to put it altogether so we
can discuss it intelligently and we're not all off on vacation and trying to see our families for the
holidays, probably early after the first of the year guesstimate.
MR. McNEIL: All right. Mrs. Colvin and then the gentleman in the back and Nick Ihasz.
Sorry. Ms. Colvin.
AUDIENCE: My name is Mary Colvin.
AUDIENCE: Speak up.
AUDIENCE: Have you done other studies of the mines of the quarries that you do have with
the impact of people around these places that you can't give us some facts on are they pleased,
are they not pleased, do the crushers bother them, this, that? I mean, you must have complaints
or praises on either way. Could you give us maybe some output on that aspect of it?
MR. McNEIL: So the question is: Has OMYA done studies or surveys on the other quarries,
mines property that they own and what is the result of those studies?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
MR. McNEIL: And will they share them with us?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
MR. REDDY: John, have we in Vermont?
MR. MITCHELL: Not that I'm aware of. There are occasional complaints. There are also
people who have lived with this process in Vermont since the 1700s so, you know.
MR. REDDY: How about Don. Let Don answer it.
MR. MITCHELL: Okay.
MR. BURNS: As John indicated, you know, we have received both praise and occasionally
complaints on how we operate our quarries. But we have done a number of studies at our other
quarries to ensure that we would not impact the community at various levels. Both Middlebury,
Hogback, Troy, we've done, you know, noise studies in the past and concluded that the activities
at the quarry would not put undue adverse impact on the noise in the area. Although we have
not done that, completed that at Jobe Phillips yet, we anticipated that since we were successful
at the other quarries, that we will be successful at Jobe Phillips. Also, as far as the blasting goes,
we're actively blasting at all our existing quarries now. Our anticipation is that we will be able to
blast at Jobe Phillips without impacting property. You know, we're waiting for the study, you
know, to model the situation which is specific to Jobe Phillips, but our anticipation is that we've
done it elsewhere and we'll be able to successfully do it at Jobe Phillips. You know, we have got
permits, air pollution control permits, existing ones at our existing quarries that we're currently in
compliance with. We have water discharge permits that are currently in compliance. Is that for
me?
AUDIENCE: It's a complaint.
MR. BURNS: So we do have a good record at our existing quarries and that's why we're
confident that we'll be able to do a similar job at Jobe Phillips. But as Jim has said, we've hired
consultants to, you know, model the specific situation that Jobe Phillips presents us and we're
eagerly awaiting the results.
MR. McNEIL: The gentleman in the back.
AUDIENCE: Steve (inaudible.) Dutch Hill Road.
MR. McNEIL: I'm sorry. I didn't get your name, sir.
AUDIENCE: Steve (inaudible.) I'm following the two earlier questions. Earlier you postured
the land up to Tinmouth as a buffer zone and the question is: Have you purchased equal
amounts of land in all other directions to have an equal buffer zone on all sides, and, if not, why
not?
MR. McNEIL: So your question is: Is there an equal buffer on all sides.
AUDIENCE: You postured earlier that (inaudible.)
MR. McNEIL: I'm sorry. I can't hear you.
AUDIENCE: You postured earlier about the purpose of moving towards Tinmouth was buffer,
so if that's the case, there should be a buffer zone the same distance moving all around.
MR. McNEIL: That part I got.
AUDIENCE: And the second thing is the range for us from OMYA, can you steadfastly assure
the people in Danby that this mine will not cause any sort of health hazard, airborne fiber? Can
you steadfastly assure the people of Danby (inaudible.)
MR. McNEIL: The question is the buffer zone, is it equal in all directions and can you assure us
that this will be -- that there won't be a health problem.
AUDIENCE: Including cancer causing agents such as tremolite.
MR. McNEIL: Including cancer causing agents such as?
AUDIENCE: Tremolite.
MR. McNEIL: Tremolite.
MR. REDDY: Okay. This is a two-part question so I'd like to call on two different people.
And we'll start with the buffer area with John who is much more familiar with the land that we
have bought around the operation.
MR. MITCHELL: Well, we cannot buy all the land there is because somebody frequently
doesn't want to sell it. But we have bought land to the west up to the top of Dutch Hill Road
and to the north to the Tinmouth line and south past the Breton farm and then to the east several
parcels along the road there that were for sale and that's what we've done so far. It's not a
question of making something that's concentric or equidistant in every direction. So those have
been the purchases that we've made to date. I think in the Town of Danby we own around a
thousand acres. I'm sorry. 2,000 acres.
MR. McNEIL: I want to get the second part of the question.
AUDIENCE: I just want to know if it's not concentric, what is the logic? Is it something
scientific that I'm not aware of?
MR. MITCHELL: We can't buy all the land there is. It's that simple.
OMYA: (Laughing.)
MR. McNEIL: The second question was thehealth question.
MR. REDDY: Your second question was about the health risks of tremolite and we actually
have an expert here, Dr. Alice Blount who is an expert and was a professional -- she'll describe
what she is.
MS. BLOUNT: I'm Alice Blount. I've worked for the company for 15 years. And as was
mentioned previously, I used to teach for a while and so, if you don't mind, I'm going to put my
teacher's hat on a little bit here. If you had asked me is there any fiber in there, I can say
unequivocally there is no fiber in this deposit whatsoever. I've never found any in any of this
rock. However, if you bring up the word "tremolite," tremolite is not the same as fiber. Now
tremolite is a mineral. It is a rather common mineral. In a 1974 study by the Environmental
Protection Agency has shown that tremolite exists in every state of the union. It occurs in soil, it
occurs in bedrock and it occurs in glacial drift,those deposits left behind by glaciers. So it's not an
uncommon mineral. If you looking at this mineral, you will see that there are little sort of
prismatic pieces of material sort of white sort of. You probably wouldn't even pay attention to
them if you saw them. That is tremolite. Now tremolite does have one variety which is an
asbestos mineral. It's called tremolite asbestos. It has never been mined for asbestos so it has no
commercial importance, therefore it doesn't have a special name. There are six minerals that form
asbestos. Three of those are common enough that they have particular and special names. Now
we have tremolite, we may call common tremolite, we have tremolite asbestos that is avariety, an
extremely rare variety, it takes very, very special geologic conditions to form that mineral.
Another mineral that you may be familiar with that is a variety of tremolite is jade. Nephrite jade
is a variety of tremolite very, very rare as well. Now,we're talking about tremolite asbestos
probably being even more rare than jade. Now I've looked at the rock very, very carefully from
the Jobe Phillips site. I use a microscope, a very special microscope that has polarized light and
other properties to it. I look at this stuff at 500 times magnification. We take the cores. We
dissolve them down with hydrochloric acid, we take a big piece of core. It dissolves down to a
little, little tiny piece of remaining stuff. That is why I look at it under my microscope. I have
looked at many samples of that and I estimate that I have looked at something like 45 million
particles under my microscope. I found six pieces of tremolite which looked like this, little
prisms. This is not a hazard to health. It is not fiber. This material is nothing that we should
worry about. We can find more of this stuff in the soil outside the door here or in the stream
sediments in any of the streams of this area.
AUDIENCE: But can you steadfastly assure us that it will not get into the air from the grinding
process (inaudible).
MS. BLOUNT: We can't put fiber in the air that's not in the rock.
AUDIENCE: You said you found some.
MS. BLOUNT: What?
AUDIENCE: You said you found some.
MS. BLOUNT: I found some common non-U tremolite. Tremolite that looks if you looked at it
under your microscope, it would look like this piece of paper. It is not a fiber. I can steadfastly
assure you that I found no fiber in this material. And we can't release it into the air if it's not in
there.
AUDIENCE: It makes its way into your grinder; then what happens? It just disappears?
MS. BLOUNT: You mean those little tiny things that are so small that I have to look at under a
500 power magnifications?
AUDIENCE: Are they there?
MS. BLOUNT: They're there. They're in the lime -- they're in the calcite pieces. When you
grind up the calcite pieces, they remain there. We don't grind them any further. They're so tiny
you have to, you know, you're not going to grind them any further.
OMYA: He doesn't understanding the difference.
MS. BLOUNT: Okay. Let's go back into that. Common tremolite is not asbestos. There is no
fiber in this rock.
AUDIENCE: You're telling me right now that your mine does not contain health hazards or
cancerous risks at all?
MS. BLOUNT: We're saying that there's no fiber in that rock as far as I know. What kind of
risk are you speaking of?
AUDIENCE: Answer his question. It's clear.
AUDIENCE: There's a potential here that there could be cancer causing agents in this rock. And
you're saying to me there's absolutely no chance of that being the case? I just want to hear you
say that. I have a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old. I want to hear you say that.
MS. BLOUNT: I'm saying that this material, when we grind it, can't release anything that's not
in there and I'm saying that I've looked at a lot of that material. I can't look at every bit of rock
before it goes into the crusher.
AUDIENCE: But you're telling me there's no chance of any of that getting airborne?
MS. BLOUNT: It's not going to be in the air, no. It will not be in the air because it's not in the
rock. As far as I know. Would you like to speak to it? Neil suggests that I tell you that non-
asbestos tremolite is regulated by federal regulation. We go beyond the federal regulations. We
don't want any asbestos in our plant. We don't want to send out any asbestos with our calcium
carbonate. That is why we look at it as closely as we do before we actually bring it into our
clients. This is a tremendous effort to look at this stuff. It's not fun. I'm looking for needles in
haystacks. And Ireally look carefully and I know what's in that material that I look at.
AUDIENCE: You're steadfastly assuring me that there are no airborne health risks?
MS. BLOUNT: Do you want to speak? Let Neil speak. Neil is our regulatory person. Let him
speak to that issue.
MR. JORDAN: The information that Alice was trying to give you was that the six particles of
non-asbestos tremolite that Alice has seen in examining how many hundred million?
MS. BLOUNT: 45 million.
MR. JORDAN: 45 million particles under her polarized light microscope is non-asbestos
tremolite. It is regulated both by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the
workplace as a nuisance particulate and there's no other environmental regulation of it as other
than a nuisance particulate. But it's simply regulated as the same as a dust particle of calcium
carbonate would be regulated as a nuisance particulate and that's what she was trying to explain
to you. That the difference between asbestos tremolite, tremolite asbestos and the non-asbestos
form.
AUDIENCE: I understand that. As a citizen inaudible. Other mines, down in New Jersey in
particular, where this particular agent has been known to cause lung and there could be other
agents which could exist in the air or in the water, whatever it may be, from this mine. And I
want you to just tell me that I have nothing to worry about. That will not be the case.
MR. JORDAN: Alice has already explained that the non-asbestos tremolite, there's no tremolite
asbestos in this deposit so it can not get into the air if it is not in the deposit. Simple as that.
AUDIENCE: So you're telling me there's no health risk at all associated with this mine. That's
what you're telling me?
MR. JORDAN: Yes.
AUDIENCE: (Applause.)