Residents in one part of Monroe County are alarmed they’re soon going to be living next to a landfill.
The property in question is a quarry located in Hamilton Township. Recently the company in charge, Hanson Aggregates, went through a global rebranding to be now known as Heidelberg Materials. And rumors are circulating it was a new owner creating a landfill.
Hamilton Township Resident who did not want to give her name says, "I thought it would be garbage possibly and we’re concerned about a lot of truck traffic and activity going on in the dark. I don’t know how well it’s going to be monitored."
Residents have a lot of concerns about this quarry near the intersection of Cherry Valley and Bossardsville Roads in Hamilton Township. The company in charge now called Heidelberg Materials is wrapping up the mining that they have been doing there for decades. Some residents were under the impression it was changing into a landfill. But we’re told it’s going through a process that basically makes the property suitable for some type of future use.
Government Affairs and Communications Vice President of Heidelberg Materials David Perkins says, "In this case, we’re going through a reclamation plan that will allow us to take clean fill to bring the level back, almost up to where it was before the mining began. So it will create a property that could be suitable for potential redevelopment."
The project has been initiated but how long it takes will depend on the supply of material.
Perkins says, "Dirt and soil, also clean construction debris so you’ve got crushed concrete, which is a wonderful fill material and it’s inert, these kinds of materials we’ll be bringing in and then we’ll be compacting and filling the pit with that."
Those in charge confirm what’s being brought in is being monitored by the State Department of Environmental Protection.
Perkins says, "That requires testing. In some cases that requires lab testing that we have to do or that the supplier of the material has to do before we can even accept it. So we’re going to be making sure that we’re taking those steps very carefully that will not allow anything that could cause any kind of groundwater contamination or other adverse environmental impacts."
But residents are still left with a lot of questions.
"How do we know that that’s actually the case?"
Heidelberg Materials has information available to the public on the process and representatives are willing to come to Hamilton Township and provide a presentation on that process, just get in touch with the supervisors.