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<br />freely into the Yule Creek, but also that the "marble could actually improve the quality <br />of natural runoff." But as the Quarry's violations demonstrate, this is far from the truth. <br />Dumping marble waste on the ground has proven to cause significant environmental <br />and aesthetic damage to adjacent lands and the Yule Creek. (PLEASE SEE PHOTOS from <br />May 2009 DRMS inspection; MV-2009-023.) This is because marble sediment is neither <br />biodegradable, nor evaporative. It does not simply go away. The marble sediment <br />remains. And every time it rains, the sediment returns to its form of an ugly, sticky <br />muck. Nor does the Yule Creek simply flush it all away. Instead, what should be "a very <br />clear stream" turns gray and retains a gray muck, which stays strewn upon the Yule <br />Creek bed and banks (Amendment at 17). This affects our private land, as well as <br />adjacent Forest Service lands. <br />Therefore, instead of permitting the quarry to once again deposit its marble waste <br />sediment on the surface, the Amendment should require offsite removal or <br />underground storage of all marble fines and sediment. Specifically, the "100 tons a year <br />of (marble) fines" projected in the Amendment at 14 should be removed from the site <br />to prevent the fines from again flowing offsite and onto the adjacent McIntyre land, <br />including into the Yule Creek, causing additional damage. In addition, the Board should <br />keep in place its Cease and Desist Order "prohibiting any further activities at the site <br />that would further damage the prevailing hydrologic balance; the deposition of marble <br />fines at the surface (being) specifically prohibited" (Board Order, Sept. 4, 2009 at 4). <br />In addition, the Amendment at 18 generally discusses the five sumps, but fails to detail <br />any ongoing maintenance to dig out the sediment that it asserts will "drop out of the <br />contained water within 48 hours...." Moreover, the Amendment at page 19 states that <br />"the sumps have no principal spillway" based on "existing site experience at the mine." <br />But history is a better indicator than the mine's own characterization. For example, the <br />Board found: "the Operator's lack of maintenance of the sedimentation controls is a <br />failure to minimize disturbance to the hydrological balance." And "sedimentation <br />catchments ...specified by the reclamation permit for the site (will be) so poorly <br />maintained so as to be non-existent." (Board Order, Sept. 4, 2009, ¶10.) Therefore, in <br />addition to requiring the removal of marble waste, the Amendment should require <br />proper ongoing maintenance for the sumps, ditches and other sediment controls. <br />THE M C I N T Y R E LAW O F F I C E <br />6