After thousands of pages of testimony, 30 hearings, two meeting venues and one wrenching pandemic, a decision is finally in sight in the 2½-year Springfield quarry saga.
Residents listened carefully as attorneys for quarry operator H&K and the Clean Air Council made their final cases before township supervisors, who are expected to issue a decision by early April. Clean Air Council lawyer Paul Cohen said H&K had not satisfied the township’s ordinances.
“How can we approve this application if we have no effort at compliance, not enough evidence of compliance?” he asked. “You don’t have an environmental impact statement. You don’t have a berm. You don’t have evidence of the location of blasting. You don’t have evidence that the environmental protection standards are met. You don’t have evidence the wetlands will be preserved. That alone is enough to deny this application.”
Cohen also accused H&K of using a “get out of zoning free card” by trying to use state laws to preempt local ordinances. Citing precedent, Cohen said state law does not supersede local zoning ordinances.
Countering Cohen, H&K attorney Joseph LaFlamme asserted the company had satisfied all the conditions, and he maintained that because the area off Route 309 is zoned planned industrial the quarry must be permitted.
LaFlamme claimed the 40-year operation would only affect 70-80 acres of the 197-acre property, and reassured residents their concerns about daily blasting are not substantiated by the facts and the record. He pooh-poohed repeated assertions the quarry would affect the health, safety and welfare of the community.
Wrapping up, LaFlamme said the township had placed compatible uses in the same district. “When you adopted zoning, you were required to reserve someplace in your township for mineral extraction and you chose planned industrial property at 309 and Springfield Street. If not here, somewhere else. Has to be. The law requires it.”
Residents in the area repeatedly urged the township to reject the proposal, citing concerns about the quarry on their businesses, homes and general health. Speaking at the January hearing, Melissa Goad wondered how the location next to a rural residential area was even considered appropriate. “We are all on well water; our lives, livelihoods and livestock depend on this well water. Dust will cover everything, every day for 40 years.”
Jen Fliszar, whose property borders the proposed site, noted data can easily be manipulated.
“Witnessing this happening and our treatment (by H&K) has me incredibly concerned about getting into a 40-year relationship with this company,” she said. “I’m concerned about the reliability of a company choosing to find loopholes and adjusting reports rather than mediating any issues that arise.”
Summing up the sentiments of her neighbors, resident Julia Hufford said H&K had the whole world to mine. “This is the only home we have, and we and our neighbors were here first!”
The decision presents a dilemma for township: the board has repeatedly stressed the need to attract new businesses to widen its tax base, but it would face an unprecedented backlash from residents with lawsuits and other unforeseen consequences should it approve.
Seeming to acknowledge this, Supervisor Jim Nilsen remarked the case was probably one of the most difficult things he’ll deal with in the community.
“It makes our job very difficult,” he said. “There are many ways to look at this. And we have to look at what needs to be done.”
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