A Connecticut-based company operating at a Westerly quarry embroiled in controversy since 2010 has been gone for nearly a year. But residents are still restless about the stockpiles of stone dust they left behind and the potential impacts to their health. The family that owns the quarry is now renting it to another company tasked with cleaning it up. Local, state and federal officials got a tour of the progress.
Several dozen local, state and federal officials walk up a massive hill of stone dust that at some point rose more than 50 feet tall.
“It’s a pretty crusted top layer at the top here and it’s below the tree line,” said Tom Liguori, a lawyer representing the new renters working here: Cherenzia Excavations. “This is the regulated product that got left behind and not dealt with.”
Liguori is alluding to the Connecticut-based company Armetta, formerly known as Copar Quarries. These companies rented the Westerly quarry for several years, but then voluntarily shut down its operations and filed for bankruptcy last year.
The company left behind this hill and several others like it on the property. Liguori said Cherenzia has not done any blasting or mining at the Westerly quarry since October, when Armetta/Copar left, because “the priority is cleanup.”
That means removing these enormous stockpiles of stone dust that, neighbors say, migrates onto their properties. Liguori’s clients and the owners of the quarry invited officials to an open house to look at the progress.
Residents are still uneasy about future quarrying at the 108-acre property. That’s why Westerly is still thinking about buying the quarry. Westerly Town Council President James Silvestri said the open house is a chance to monitor the cleanup.
“We just want to make sure that everybody gets the same information because sometimes there’s misinformation out there about what’s going on and how the cleanup is going,” said Silvestri. “And this is it. No questions now. Everybody sees it firsthand.”
Under the direction of the quarry owners, Cherenzia has already reduced the tallest hill by 30 percent and sold the material. They’ve agreed to eliminate these dust stockpiles by next fall and scale back on any blasting along its stone wall.
Silvestri and others stood before the 100-foot wall with several deep vertical lines, signs of all the blasting done in the recent past.
The town signed an agreement with the quarry owners who agreed any company operating on their property will limit their blast depths to no more than 40 feet per blast and use no more than 15,000 pounds of explosives per blast.
Silvestri noted that’s about a third of what the former quarry operators were blasting. “So they were doing 45,000 to 50,000 pounds of explosives [per blast], which is a big blast.”
Many of the people on the tour were surprised by the scale of the operations that took place at the quarry. Morgan said her constituents would like to see all quarrying activities stop.
“It would help the residents immensely if we did maybe a park or something here instead of what they’re doing with the mining,” she said. “It’s hazardous to the residents. They have to deal with blasting and deal with the silica dust. It’s not a good thing for their health.”
State and federal officials won’t confirm the dust has silica, a known carcinogen. But they acknowledge why people are worried. Deborah Szaro, the deputy regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, attended this open house.
“We do share concerns just as a collaborator in the environmental protection,” said Szaro. “We can’t say that there are health concerns – that’s a different agency than ours. But from an environmental concern, we wanted to come out and see what the residents are talking about… so that we can be better informed.”
The owners of the quarry, the Comollis, also want people to be better informed. David Richard Comolli explains his family agreed to an open house to clear the quarry’s reputation.
“They say that the town policemen have been up here more than 200 for sound violations—they’ve never found one,” said Comolli. “The studies found the migrating dust is minimal. We feel that no one wants a quarry in their background, but no one wants to own a quarry and have it always lied about.”
In recent years, residents have complained that the blasting has damaged the foundation of their homes. They say the noise and shaking from the blast and migrating dust have affected their health and quality of life. But Comolli insists there’s no evidence to prove their claims.
“I’m not saying nothing left the site—it’s an industrial site,” he said. “It’s been here since 1858. Listen, when you buy a property, you should research the area you buy it in.”
But quarrying activities stopped for decades and the quarry has long been described in many types of documents as dormant and inactive. Residents say they haven’t able to prove any of their claims due to lax enforcement and monitoring practices.
Comolli said his family tried to get their former renters to comply with standard industry practices, but weren’t successful. “We’re very happy that they’re no longer with us,” he said.
Comolli said the decision to sell the quarry to Westerly is up to his father.
What offers some comfort now is that a local company is executing the cleanup, said Tom Gentz, Charlestown Town Council president.
“The takeaway is that Cherenzia is doing a great job of remediating the piles and watering them,” said Gentz. “It’s not perfect but the piles are going away. Thirty percent of the piles have disappeared with their process, so I commend Cherenzia on the work they’ve done.”
Gentz would like to see a moratorium on blasting until all the piles are gone. But as Cherenzia’s lawyer reminded visitors, the right to blast and crush quarry rocks on this land was locked in a long time ago. Gentz, like others, hopes the future will be buying the property and preserving it as open space.
Note: This post has been updated.
