Omya Eyes Mine Site

For Waste Disposal

By John Freitag

The Elizabeth Mine Community Advisory Group (EMCAG) once again will study a request to use waste material from the Omya manufacturing plant at the Superfund Clean-up site in Strafford.

Jim Hamilton, Omya’s VP of environmental and external affairs, has asked for time to make a presentation at the March 20 EMCAG meeting.

"It is my understanding that the EMCAG is interested in options that would improve the environmental conditions at the Elizabeth Mine and that one of these options is the beneficial reuse of our tailings product as a soil amendment," Hamilton explained.

The meeting, which will be held at the Rice's Mills Community Center in Thetford, will include a number of topics regarding ongoing work at the site which has seen over $20 million of investigation and work over the last eight years.

The discussion of the use of Omya wastes will likely start around 8 p.m.

Last year at its April meeting, EMCAG members were informed of plans to bring around 200 tons of waste products from the Omya plant in Florence, Vt. to the Elizabeth Mine Site as a pilot project to see if they could be incorporated into the remediation work at the site.

Omya is a multinational corporation that owns quarries in the marble belt of Vermont and grinds and processes the material to be used in paper and paint products. Their plant in Florence (near Rutland) generates between 100,000 and 150,000 of tons of waste products each year and Omya has been actively seeking a use for these waste products.

Study Mandated

After the April meeting, it turned out that a legislatively mandated study known as "Section 5" was in process to discover what was in the waste and how it impacted the environment.

Concerns about using the Omya material, first aired by The Herald and later picked up by papers around New England, caused enough of a ruckus that the project was put on hold until the Section 5 study was completed. At the same time, the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources made a commitment that the wastes would not be used without community approval.

This past month the results of the Section 5 study were presented to the legislature and there was some good and bad news. The good news is that the wastes, as they are currently being stored in old marble quarries and holding cells, have been determined to pose no current threat to human health and the environment.

The bad news is that the waste is contaminated with a toxic substance, aminoethyl-ethanolamine or AEEA. AEEA is a component of the floation reagent,TOHI, used by Omya to process the marble. AEEA has been shown to cause birth defects in laboratory experiments, and is considered especially dangerous to pregant women and small children.

Arsenic and high levels of iron and manganese were also cited by scientists as contaminates of concern in the waste material.  

High levels of AEEA have been found in settling ponds and quarries on the Florence site but only low levels in one spring off-site.

Omya, which was not aware of problems associated with this chemical, has reduced the amount of AEEA that is used and is now seeking a source of TOHI that does not include AEEA. Omya is also working on building a dewatering facility.

Currently the waste is 90% water and the AEEA is in the wastewater, not the waste itself. Once the waste is dewatered in the new facility, it should not contain AEEA. 

Omya’s Hamilton noted that this will be the company’s opportunity " to share the results of our legislatively-mandated ‘Section 5’ study and to discuss those findings with the TAC.

"More importantly," he said, "I would like to hear the thoughts of the group as to how best to explore the possibility of using our material to help remediate the Elizabeth site".

In reference to last year’s complaints that Omya’s plan took the community unaware, Hamilton noted that through the recent Section 5 process, the company learned "the value of collaboration.

"We will use that process as a model for communications with the EMCAG," he pledged. "It is in this spirit that I will be attending next week's meeting."

The Elizabeth Mine Community Advisory Group  will play an important role in  deciding whether it is appropriate to use this material. Key to that decision is which wastes will be used and what effect they  will have when transported, stored, and applied to the site.

The EMCAG meeting on March 20, as with all their meetings, is open to the public. Reps. Jim Masland and Margaret Cheney have been invited to attend, as well as a representative from Vermonters for a Clean Environment, an environmental advocacy group which played a major role in initiating the Section 5 study.