Will the pending Charlestown mining ordinance cost jobs?

Will local quarry operators take a financial hit if this ordinance passes?

By Will Collette

The jobs versus environment argument is central to the debate over the
Keystone Pipeline project. I expect it to come up during the debate
over Charlestown's mining ordinance.

The honest answer to both questions is “yes.” Yes, Ordinance 364, coming up for a March 10 hearing before the Charlestown Town Council and perhaps a vote, will cost local quarry and sand & gravel operators’ money. Yes, the additional costs of compliance with environmental standards and land restoration may translate into a loss of jobs, especially if one or more of Charlestown’s six active mines decide to close instead of comply.

What new regulations will Ordinance 364 impose on Charlestown’s seven existing mines? First, every operation must get a town permit. Eventually, after a long (too long, in my opinion) transition period, these mines will have to mine in an environmentally responsible way. They may no longer use explosives. They must get a bond to cover damage they do to the environment. When they close, they must restore the site to some semblance of its original condition.

It’s a good ordinance, though it still needs some significant changes (click here for details) to make it best it can be, not to mention what we deserve. But it will cost the operators money to go from being totally unregulated to being regulated. It does no one any good to ignore that fact.

So far, no one has raised this issue, but it’s only a matter of time, so I’ll raise it because in every public policy debate, especially about the environment, there are trade-offs. In forty years of environmental activism, I have rarely seen industry representatives fail to wave the bloody shirt of job loss at times like this.

Coal mine owners screamed bloody murder when Congress debated the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA). They said it would kill the coal industry dead as a doornail. But Congress passed SMCRA in 1977 and, guess what? We started mining more coal than ever, now around one billion tons a year, and coal profits are sky high.

Ironically, coal operators found it more profitable to strip mine under the new law than to use underground mining because they could mine more coal with less workers, using giant equipment and explosives to substitute for miners.

Mining, regardless of what substance you pull out of the ground, is one of the purest examples of supply-and-demand in action. Booms and busts in mining are market driven way more than regulatory driven. If there’s a good market for the stone, gravel and sand, mining companies will go after it.

I’m sure the irony of my support for strictly regulating quarries and sand pits, even at the certain costs it represents to the owners, is obvious given how often I have excoriated Planning Commissar Ruth Platner in particular and the CCA Party in general for their anti-business policies.

This kind of equipment killed employment in the coal industry, not the
regulations that came in under SMCRA

Right now, Charlestown has around 300 acres (299.54 acres to be exact) at seven sites that will be affected by Ordinance 364. These sites are all near important waterways and sit atop the aquifer where we all draw our well water.

I oppose efforts by the CCA Party to try to enforce its own Disney World/Sturbridge Village fantasies about Charlestown through intricately detailed regulations on the depth of mulch, the color of light switch covers, inflexibility on signage and relentless promotion of gables, gables, gables when we have much more important problems. Such as an unregulated industry that wrecks the landscape and could also ruin our drinking water.

The most expensive part of Ordinance 364 will be the new obligation to restore the land after it has been mined. The lessons learned in the 37 years since the federal coal mining law was passed show us that reclamation, or restoration as it is called in Ordinance 364, is indeed difficult and expensive.

But the alternative is to leave 300 acres of moonscape as a permanent part of the Charlestown landscape. Just to give you a sense of scale, Ninigret Park is only 227 acres. 

Let’s not forget that old, unreclaimed quarries are also a serious safety hazard, one that claims the lives of many children. Old quarries are so dangerous that Charlestown law [Code of Ordinances, §162-3] forbids you to swim in one, like the one off Klondike Road.

I am sorry for the costs this throws on the owners. They are not all like Copar, that Connecticut-based operation that has made life in Bradford a living hell. Many of the other local operators are local people with roots and families and friends. And of course, I feel terrible for anyone who loses their job. 

However, this is clearly a case where the good of the many outweighs the needs of the few.

And if there’s someone you want to blame, blame Copar for destroying an old and historic industry’s reputation in Charlestown and Westerly.

Here’s a visual tour of Charlestown’s sites listed on Joe Warner's memo through screen shots from Google Earth, so you can see the sites and perhaps even picture what they might look like after reclamation. If you browse Google Earth and look around Charlestown, you'll find quite a few more sites that look like they were old quarries.

South County Sand & Gravel - right on Route One near Ninigret Park. 77.27 acres [Google Earth screen shot]

South County Sand & Gravel's abandoned site on Klondike Road, rumored to be Copar's next target. 24 acres. [Google Earth screen shot]

Copar's Morone site right off Route 91. Note how close they are to the Pawcatuck. 47 acres. [Google Earth screen shot]

Botka's site right at the northern end of Pasquisset Pond. 15.37 acres. [Google Earth screen shot]

M&M Gravel on Ross Hill Road, just south of Copar's Bradford quarry. Charlestown's largest active site at just under 80 acres. [Google Earth screen shot]

Shoreline Gravel on Narrow Lane. Site of last summer's helicopter target shooting incident. 45.3 acres. [Google Earth screen shot]

John Flynn's site off Old Post Road. Charlestown's smallest active site at 10.59 acres. [Google Earth screen shot]