Public Comments Needed Today to Stop the White Lake Granite Quarry

The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) is taking public comments until July 29th for the new proposed granite quarry in White Lake, in the western Adirondacks in the Town of Forestport. The project is called the  “Thomas Sunderlin and Red Rock Quarry Associates, LLC, APA Project 2021-0075.” While many comments have already been submitted, it’s important comments are made during the APA’s current public comment period.

We need to get as many individual letters/emails as possible that call for the project to be denied or sent to an official adjudicatory public hearing. Now is the time that public comments count the most important!

Protect the Adirondacks is working with the Adirondack White Lake Association and other residents and local businesses in the area who are concerned about this proposed project.

Lets flood the APA with letters.

Here’s the project description from the APA:

The action involves operation of a mineral extraction of dimensional stone consisting of a 5.2-acre excavation area located within a 26.6-acre Life of Mine with a maximum of 8.8 acres to be affected under an initial five-year permit term. Mineral extraction operations to occur seasonally April through October, Monday through Friday 7am-6pm and on Saturdays 7am-12pm.

During the operating season and within normal operating hours, a maximum of two targeted blast events may occur on site between 9am and 3pm with any processing of ancillary rock for use as aggregate occurring between 8am and 4pm. A maximum of 20 trucks per day may enter and leave the site over Stone Quarry Road during normal operating hours with no trucking operations or on-site extraction, processing or stockpiling activities occurring on Sundays or legal holidays.

 

Send in Your Public Comment Today

The public hearing has closed. Comments can be mailed to.

Devan Korn, Project Review
NYS Adirondack Park Agency
P.O. Box 99
Ray Brook, NY 12977

Talking Points for Letters to the APA

Dear Devan Korn, NYS Adirondack Park Agency

Please accept these comments as part of the public comment period on the proposed Thomas Sunderlin and Red Rock Quarry Associates, LLC, APA Project 2021-0075, in Forestport, NY.

  1. The site of the Thomas Sunderlin and Red Rock Quarry Associates project in Forestport has been dormant for over 90 years and the White Lake area has grown into a tourism/resort community since then. When it was used it hauled out stone on the railroad and there were few local residences. The APA should either deny this project or send it to an official adjudicatory public hearing.
  2. The APA should hold an official adjudicatory public hearing because the project is highly controversial and important new information will be provided by independent mining experts and hydrologists, among other experts. This information was not adequately provided or evaluated in the application.
  3. The proposed project is a burden on the local government because the current access road is inadequate for the proposed level of truck traffic and the intersection on Route 28 is inadequate for 40 truck trips (20 per day) entering and exiting that road. The Route 28 intersection will need to be rebuilt. The application was inadequate on a highway intersection study.
  4. There is no adequate hydrology study for the impacts of blasting and mine operations on White Lake and Little Long Lake. An official adjudicatory public hearing will provide the opportunity for an independent analysis by a hydrologist. The application has inadequate data on hydrology.
  5. The project is located in an APA Moderate Intensity Area, which is principally an area zoned for residential uses. Further, the property has long been enrolled in a NYS Preferential Forest Tax Law program, which has provided a tax subsidy to maintain these lands in working forest open space. White Lake is an Adirondack resort area that has built a thriving tourist economy. This project threatens the residential quality of life in the area. The location is not an industrial use area and the proposed activities should only be sited in a secluded and pre-determined Industrial Use Area where mining activities will not negatively affect local residents.
  6. The noise study provided by the applicant is inadequate. An official adjudicatory public hearing will provide the opportunity for independent analysis of noise impacts from blasting and mining operations. The noise from this project will burden local residences and businesses with two loud blasts per day and “aggregate processing” between 9AM and 3PM. This project threatens the tourist economy and residential quality of life of the area with highly disruptive industrial noises.
  7. Dust and particulate matter will be generated on-site and will be carried by the wind to off-site locations. The data on particulate matter impacts provided in the application is inadequate.
  8. There is no traffic study about how 20 truck trips, which means up to 40 incidents of trucks entering and exiting the mine. How will large, heavily loaded trucks impact traffic on Route 28? What impacts will there be to local residents and businesses. There is no acknowledgement of a local crosswalk in the area. An official adjudicatory public hearing will provide the opportunity for independent analysis of traffic impacts and a traffic study.
  9. The site currently does not have an adequate electricity supply. The application does not have information on how the site will be powered and how this will affect local residents and nearby properties.
  10. The application proposes a schedule of 11-hour mining days Monday to Friday from April to October, all through the summer tourism season, and on Saturdays from 7 to 12 noon. Given the negative impacts of a new industrial operation in a residential area, which will be the only industrial operation in the general White Lake area, these long hours proposed by the applicant will be burdensome to local residents. These hours of operation are simply unfair to nearby residences and local tourism businesses.
  11. There are other quarries in the Town of Forestport that are isolated and are not surrounded by residences. Those are appropriately sited. This is a poor site for a mine.
  12. The application had no information about how an industrial mining operation will impact local property values. This is important information that must be evaluated. There is no survey of local longstanding business owners who stand to see their tourism businesses undermined and negatively impacted by a new industrial mining operation.
  13. The landowner has viable economic alternatives for the site other than granite mining. First, the land is enrolled in a Preferential Forest Tax Law program that minimizes carrying costs and helps to make forest management viable. Second, the property could easily be subdivided for residential purposes. Third, the property could be sold to another timberland owner.This project should either be denied or sent to an official adjudicatory hearing. This project meets several of the criteria in the APA Rules and Regulations for an adjudicatory hearing.Thank you very much.