WOODBURY – Swenson Granite Company, now a division of a company named Polycor, has submitted an application to the Town of Woodbury asking that it approve a non-confirming use of the quarry property, asking to expand the extraction of granite from the quarry to 750,000 cubic feet from its current 400,000 cubic feet.
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A petition has also been submitted for a permit under Vermont’s Act 250, which is being considered to authorize expansion of the quarry’s existing extraction footprint northward, continuing from the south as it does now. Operational changes include establishment of a new waste stockpile (grout) storage area on the hillside to the north. A mobile crusher will be brought onsite for a maximum of 45 days per year to process up to 20,000 cubic yards of grout annually into a saleable product. Three additional storm water detention ponds will be constructed downhill of the existing pond. There are no changes proposed to the previously approved 750,000 cubic feet of annual saleable extraction volume.
The town’s Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) has scheduled a meeting for June 17. at 5:30 p.m., for the continuation of its open meeting that was continued to an unspecified future date on November 18 last year.
Wednesday’s meeting’s agenda indicates a decision will be read and then published the following day on Front Porch Forum.
The Act 250 hearing is scheduled for Friday, June 26. In an April 20 letter to the District 5 Environmental Commission considering Swenson’s Act 250 permit, the town’s attorney, David K. Mears indicates that Woodbury and Swenson have been unable to arrive at an acceptable level of compensation for impact to town roads from Swenson’s trucking of granite. He indicates the town feels the 2001 compensation of $0.065 per cubic foot is no longer adequate to meet even the existing impacts on the quarry’s use of Cabot Road.
The letter asks the commission for a hearing where it intends to present information about the increased impact from quadrupling truck traffic and the increased cost of road building materials, labor, contractors, fuel and town overhead costs, all of which have increased dramatically since 2001.
In the letter, Mears writes, “The Town notes the irony of the fact that Swenson/Polycor at once complains in their letter about the inadequate state of Cabot Road while also arguing to limit the corporation’s contribution to the cost of maintenance.”
“The Town has, to date, supported the quarry and appreciates the contributions of the quarry’s operations to the local economy,” he wrote.
“The adversarial posture of Swenson/Polycor to the Town is not consistent with the town’s past experiences with the quarry, which have been collaborative and positive. The Town’s interests in this instance are solely to ensure that it has adequate funds to provide a safe and well-maintained roadway that can both support the increased demands of the expanded quarry operations and the use of the road by local residents,” concluded Mears in his letter to the commission.
At a March 2016 meeting, when the last ZBA approval was given to Swenson, residents asked questions about the volume of truck traffic, waste, air and water quality from the granite crushing process, noise, increases to compensation for the town, conflicts with school buses, work hours and the number of additional employees involved.
The applicant, Robert Pope then responded that the hours of operation are typically 6 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, and the number of employees would increase from the current 10 to 12, adding three to five to reach 13 to 17.
Pope said that trucks do not operate while the school buses are on the roads and they are very diligent about that.
They now use diamond wiring instead of jet torches to cut the granite, said Pope. The process is much quieter and there have been no complaints, he added.
Pope explained that the quarry does use water but has no water source except rain water so all water is recaptured and reused and there is a storm water plan.
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
