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Shale Quarry Blues

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Overview

There is a shale quarry just across the dirt road that is just past our barn -- to the right you see the view of this quarry from our veranda, the same view as from our bedroom; note the backhoe, the grader/loader, and the bulldozer all working it this day. The quarrying has been escalating since 1999 and we believe that this quarry should be shut down as it does not meet requirements set forth in the West Virginia State Code. The enforcement agency for quarrying, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection Office of Mining & Reclamation (WVDEP-OMR) has been consistently uncooperative with our efforts. We have also dealt with the Division of Water Resources (WVDEP-DWR) in trying to get this site compliant with the terms of the WV/NPDES General Permit (a requirement that any construction site of sufficient size contain runoff water).

Ultimately, we would like to get WVDEP-OMR to properly enforce the law as it pertains to this shale quarry. Their position (that it is not a surface mine needing regulation) seems two be based on two things: (a) when the law says "mineral" it really means "regulated mineral", and (b) that since the West Virginia Department of Highways (WVDOH) uses it, it is therefore totally exempt as a "borrow pit" from any surface mine regulations (even though the vast majority of the quarrying has nothing whatsoever to do with highway work).

Background

Our small slice of Almost Heaven, West Virginia is marred by one annoying problem: a shale quarry just across the dirt road that is just past the barn. The owner of this so-called "shale pit" used to own our land, too, and we had chatted with him before we made our purchase offer in 1998. He characterized the activity at the shale pit as "occasional" use by the WVDOH. We beg to differ; over the years this site has increasing use by a number of private contractors for non-highway use as well as varying use by WVDOH -- anywhere from one to six dump dump trucks, up to two loaders, up to six days per week, up to six weeks in a row. This is not occasional.

We approached the owner in late 1999 about the level of activity at the quarry and he seemed quite indifferent to our concerns. We then contacted the WV Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) about it, and over five years later we are still getting the run-around from them.

We've been handed a variety of excuses as to why DEP isn't going to do anything about this quarry. Over the years we've been told, on different occasions, by employees of DEP:

1. That this shale quarry does not have a permit but the law "is about to change" and that this change would allow this particular operation to be allowed without a permit
2. The State Department of Highways (DOH) could do anything it wanted at any site without a permit
3. That the operation was under one acre in size and so is allowed under a quarry personal use exemption
4. The owner and an excavating contractor had signed affidavits attenting that the shale was all being used on the owner's property so this falls under the quarry personal use exemption
5. The owner isn't charging money for the shale so this falls under a non-commercial quarry exemption
6. The DEP has "interpreted" the law such that this operation isn't a quarry at all, it's a "borrow pit" and "We [WVDEP] don't regulate borrow pits"

Click Below for More Info

Our photoblog chronicling this quarrying that is eating away at a mountain and ruining the quality of life on our farm

Copies of relvant regulations and correspondence to the matter of our trying to get this shale quarry under control

A list of abbreviations and acronyms