After 10 months of interim legislative meetings and 6 quarry stakeholder meetings, a bill has been passed out of a joint committee to regulate non-coal rock quarrying. Sen. Snyder (co-chair of the interim committee) wants to fast-track the bill in the regular session and even suggested a possible public hearing during the week of Jan 24. In its sixth draft, the bill has numerous weaknesses. Limestone, the source rock for hundreds of prolific springs and tens of thousands of residential water supplies, also gives birth to the Greenbrier, Elk, Tygart, Cheat, and South Branch headwaters. This limestone is the primary target of the quarry industry (16 million tons last year). Mining the limestone could permanently damage some of the greatest water resources in the eastern U.S. At Capitol Cement’s eastern panhandle quarry, one mine extracts 4 million gallons of groundwater a day!

Our lobbying efforts and active citizens in Hardy, Grant, Pocahontas, Pendleton, Jefferson, Berkeley, and Wood Counties originally won a mandate from The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Director Castle to require groundwater monitoring in the bill. Nonetheless, DEP representative Rocky Parsons has all but abandoned this stance and the bill in its final form will not require groundwater monitoring unless the operators self report groundwater problems from the past 5 years. Since they haven’t been required to even monitor for those impacts, such self-reporting of problems is laughable. As the bill exists, the 67 existing quarry permits would not be required to monitor groundwater impacts.

Other provisions that need to be changed in the bill include: strengthening public participation (to require public hearings for major permit modifications), increasing funds to DEP to oversee the program, (require 5 cents per ton of rock mined), increasing the buffer zone beyond 300 feet (as quarries may mine beside residences for 100 years or more), and strengthening the ability to deny permits (include language that would allow permit denial based on future economic use of the lands - i.e. spring water development).

Be prepared to come to the Capitol for the quarry bill’s public hearing on short notice (last year’s MTR hearing occurred with 16 hours notice). The water issue cannot be overstated. Sixty of the springs originating in WV limestones produce over a total of 31 billion gallons of water per year. Pepsi’s Aquafina generates up to $0.45 profit per gallon of bottled water.

What might we give away economically, if quarries are allowed to operate without monitoring spring water (groundwater) quantity and quality that they put at risk? Quite possibly, we could destroy the single biggest piece of the post-coal economic pie. If you didn’t already know, the limestones of eastern WV are essentially untouched by coal or oil and gas impacts (no reserves), they are close to eastern US markets, and may well be the highest quality waters east of the Mississippi. Does anybody have any vision out there? [All bold in print supplied by editor]