Rutland Herald
Group protests OMYA quarry plan
September 7, 2000
By SANDI SWITZER Herald Correspondent
DANBY - A statewide environmental and consumer watchdog group has joined the fight against OMYA's proposed quarry operation in Danby.
The Vermont Public Interest Research Group sponsored a rally on Wednesday to announce its plans to join local opposition groups fighting OMYA's efforts to start marble mining operations at its Jobe Phillips property, near Danby Four Corners.
With scenic Dutch Hill in the background, VPIRG Outreach Director Peter Sterling said his group would focus on ways to stop a "completely inappropriate strip mine from ruining this valley."
Sterling told a small crowd of opponents that OMYA's proposal would not be a traditional Vermont quarry operation, but rather a strip-mine development that would negatively affect farms, businesses, residences and wildlife.
He called for OMYA to shelve its proposal, and for Gov. Howard Dean to visit the region and hear neighbors' concerns.
The company has maintained the open-pit operation would not be a "strip mine" but a quarry with one opening, mining downward for a three-fold layer of marble deposits. The ore would be trucked to OMYA's processing plant in Florence.
Annette Smith, executive director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment, was also on hand to announce her group's opposition to locating the operation in one of "the most beautiful valleys in all of Vermont." Smith has been a leader of regional opposition to a proposed gas pipeline in the Route 7 corridor.
Smith said VCE would join with Tinmouth and Middletown Springs to fight the quarry project at state Act 250 land use hearings. Danby has not yet taken a position, though some residents have asked town officials to oppose the project.
Smith said her group had retained lawyers and would have experts prepared to testify.
An OMYA official said recently the company expected to seek an Act 250 permit by the end of this year or early next year.
About 20 local citizens, project neighbors and officials from nearby towns gathered along the Hoisington Crossroad truck route in Danby for the rally Wednesday.
They carried a VPIRG banner that read "Keep Vermont's Air and Water Clean" and a red stop sign with "OMYA" emblazoned on the front.
Tinmouth Selectman Caleb Scott said his town was not interested in being a "through-road" for OMYA's 18-wheel trucks hauling material to the processing plant in Florence.
"I don't want to compete with semis when I'm on a tractor pulling a hay wagon," Scott said.
Middletown Springs Selectman Robin Chestnut-Tangerman said his board voted to oppose the project after citizens spoke overwhelmingly against it at a public hearing.
After the brief rally, a caravan of vehicles traveled a few miles down a winding, dirt road to Dorset Mountain.
Once there, project opponents pointed to the site of the proposed quarry, which would be beyond the checkerboard landscape of farms, fields of corns, silos and church steeples.
They talked of the project's potential impacts on infrastructure and aesthetics.
"Hear all that racket?" Tinmouth Selectman Michael Fannin said, half-jokingly, about the chirping birds. "We have to live with that every day."
Donna Herrick, a leader of the Danby opposition group, said she did not expect the local Select Board to take a position on the project until after a townwide vote is scheduled.
Herrick said all taxpayers as well as registered voters should be allowed to participate in the advisory vote. "It would be a more honest assessment of how people feel," she said.
The Danby Select Board has scheduled an informational meeting with OMYA officials on Sept. 26 at 7 p.m. at the Danby Four Corners Town Hall.