Omya Gets Criticism

At Community Meeting

sBy John Freitag

At a May 10 informational meeting at Barrett Hall in South Strafford, officials from the Omya Corporation and the state confirmed that they are postponing for a year a plan to ship 200 tons of Omya waste to the Elizabeth Mine Superfund site in South Strafford.

At the same meeting testimony from the director of an environmental organization was so critical of Omya's past practices that some listeners wondered if the project should even be considered next year.

In late April, Omya applied for a permit to ship 200 tons of ther chemically contaminated wastes from their Florence, Vermont processing plant to Strafford as part of a pilot project to see if their waste product could be useful in the remediation at the site.

The news from John Schmeltzer, project manger at the Elizabeth Mine Site for the Agency of Natural Resources, was that the waste would not be brought this year and would only be used in the future with community approval.

This new policy stands in contrast to the earlier plan to bring the material here this month without informing either the Elizabeth Mine Community Advisory Group or the Strafford Selectboard of potential problems with the waste.

Both Schmeltzer and Jim Hamilton, a representative of Omya, agreed that mistakes had been made and committed their organizations to extensive community input in the future.

The criticism of Omya came from Annette Smith, executive director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment (VCE), who has been researching Omya, a mutinational corporation that bought the Vemont Marble Company in 1976 and now owns land in 20 Vermont towns. It has a processing plant in Florence and active quarying operations in Middlebury, Wallingford and Florence.

These operations bring the raw material to the plant where they produce refined calcium carbornate for use in paper products, plastics, and paints. There are over 100,000 tons of chemically contaminated waste products that are dumped into nearby unlined quarries near the plant each year. This is the material which is proposed for the Elizabeth Mine site, where it could theoretically help neutralize the acidic site and allow vegetative growth.

Smith detailed environmental violations by the company since its start of operation in Vermont. Smith also claimed that Omya is one of the largest users of pesticides in the state, using biocides to kill the molds and bacteria in the product when it is shipped out in rail cars. For many years the biocide-laden water from washing out rail cars and floor drains was mixed with the other Omya waste until VCE helped put a stop to that practice, she said.

Omya, which has about 140 plants around the world, has a history of problems with other communities in which they operate, she said.

In 2002, VCE hosted a gathering in which citizens and officials from communities with Omya plants in other parts of the Unitied States, Canada, and France shared their concerns and experiences with this corporate giant which, they said, often treats communities in which they have plants with disdain.

Smith said in recent years Omya has become more cooperative and is an active partner in the three year legislatively mandated study on their waste and its effect on the environment.

Smith gave Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Jeff Wennberg credit for determining that the Omya byproduct was indeed "solid waste" with an effect on people and/or the environment that needed to be regulated.

At the end of her presentation there was sharp questioning from the audience. Some, like Marie Ricketts and Toni Pippy, felt that given this company's past record with environmental regulations and unknowns about the material itself, there was no reason even to consider bringing the material here at all.

Tom Essex, a nearby landowner and strong supporter of the Superfund clean-up, said we should let the process work itself out. Strafford Selectboard Chair Steve Willbanks expressed his disappointment at how things were initially handled.

It was clear by the end of the meeting that there would be quite a bit of scrutiny on the issue before any decision would be made.

It is likely that the Omya topic will come up as part of the next Elizabeth Community Advisory Group meeting on May 24 , but only as part of a larger discussion on what is happening at the site. The meeting, at Barrett Hall at 7 p.m., will be open to the public.