Future of mining on swapped forest preserve lands remains uncertain
By Gwendolyn Craig
An Essex County mining operation wants the state to authorize a new way to extract tons of wollastonite in a year-round, 24-hours-per-day underground work schedule that includes weekday blasting.
The request from NYCO Minerals is within a pending application that seeks state approval to expand hours of operation and change its mineral extraction from above ground to underground, 354 feet deeper than its current permit allows.
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Local government officials and environmental groups have public health, climate and other concerns about the proposal, which is tied to the company that received unprecedented authorization from voters in 2013 to explore mining opportunities in the constitutionally protected forest preserve.
NYCO Minerals, a subsidiary of Paris-based industrial mineral company Imerys, hopes to receive Adirondack Park Agency and state Department of Environmental Conservation’s permission to amend its permits at its Oak Hill wollastonite quarry in the town of Lewis. The APA is accepting public comments until Nov. 29. The DEC is accepting them until Dec. 20.
Ginny Dunn, communications director at Imerys, based out of the state of Georgia, said the application amendment “would enable our ability to extract and transform minerals responsibly over the long term and deliver sustainable solutions to meet the growing demand for the minerals that are essential to people’s lives, home and economies.”
Wollastonite is used as a replacement for asbestos in items like paint, roof tiles and insulation. It is also used in ceramics and adhesives, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Mines in Essex and Lewis counties were the only places in the United States where wollastonite is mined, according to a 2001 USGS report. Imerys also has a wollastonite mine in Mexico.
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The proposal
The Oak Hill Mine is a 455-acre property off state Route 9 and just north of the intersection of Route 9 and Pulsifer Road in the town of Lewis. Previous owners have operated an open-pit wollastonite mine in the tow n of Lewis since 1976, starting with three acres.
Lands in the Adirondack Park have specific zoning classifications, which allow varying levels of development. The park agency is most agreeable to development in hamlets and areas zoned for industrial use. Wilderness areas are the most restricted. The APA reclassified additional lands for mining extraction from “resource management” to “industrial use” in July 1991 through a mapping amendment.
In 1996 and 1997, after holding multiple informational meetings and an adjudicatory hearing, the APA issued additional permits for the mining operation.
Currently, NYCO’s mine area is just under 150 acres. NYCO estimated it has about five years left of mineral resources to extract at its open pit mine, according to its permit application in December 2023.
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NYCO applied for the expansion amendment in 2023 and received notices of incomplete application from the APA and DEC in early 2024 and again later in the year.
The state agencies asked for more information on lighting, signs, vegetative maintenance, reclamation plans, water-quality monitoring, noise monitoring and clarifications of the proposal itself.
NYCO proposes to move from open pit mining to room-and-pillar mining. It plans to mine about 62.6 acres underground, 35.9 of which are outside of its above-ground mine boundary, though it expects no surface disturbance. Contractors will build 25-feet-tall by 30-feet-wide ramps connecting the mine lower levels to the surface. There will be 40-foot by 40-foot pillars with 80-foot by 80-foot center-to-center spacing, and a 30-foot extraction height, according to the permit application.
The company anticipates removing 2.2 million cubic yards of ore over a decade, with an anticipated completion date of 2039. Remediation plans include flooding the underground portion.
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Additionally, NYCO plans to allow for additional hours of operation on Saturdays. It is also requesting year-round, 24 hours per day underground mining activities and underground blasting from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The DEC is also reviewing the plans under a mined land reclamation permit and for additional water that NYCO will need to withdraw for dewatering the underground portions.
Concerns
Lewis Supervisor James Monty said he’s most concerned about how the aquifer the town uses to supply drinking water to about 120 homes is close to where the underground mining is proposed.
He also has some questions about the blasting and noise levels.
The town has a hard time contacting and discussing local issues with Imerys, he said, particularly about required highway maintenance by the company. Imerys acquired the mine in 2015. Extension of hauling hours, he said, has the potential to impact traffic on county Route 12.
Dunn did not directly address concerns the town of Lewis has about the proximity of the proposal to its aquifer. She noted that “preserving the environment is an integral part of our values and our business strategy” and shared with the Explorer a copy of the company’s environmental charter and registration document.
The Explorer spoke with a couple of environmental organizations a few days before the APA’s public comment deadline. Protect the Adirondacks and the Adirondack Council had not yet submitted comments. They were still assessing the nearly 3,845 pages in the application record that the APA gave 15 days to review.
The application came just off the heels of the APA’s approval of Barton Mines’ operations expansion in the towns of Johnsburg and Indian Lake earlier this month.
Jackie Bowen, conservation director of the Adirondack Council, said a lesson learned coming out of the Barton permit amendment is a greater need for the APA to comply with the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
The council wants to see the mining operation collect baseline greenhouse gas emissions data to understand whether these permits are supporting or hindering the state’s carbon reduction goals.
Bowen said the council would have additional comments after reviewing more, but said anything with NYCO “grabs your attention.”
Peter Bauer, executive director of Protect the Adirondacks, was also still reviewing the material but said the application didn’t surprise him.
“In 2013 they (NYCO) said they were almost out of wollastonite and would be done very soon if they didn’t get the land swap, they would go out of business,” Bauer said, referencing the constitutional amendment that allowed NYCO exploratory drilling in forest preserve. “All of that has proven to be false.”
To submit comments to the APA by Nov. 29, go to https://apa.ny.gov/Hearings/ApaCommentPopup.cfm?ProjectNumber=2023-0256. To submit comments to the DEC by Dec. 20, go to https://dec.ny.gov/news/environmental-notice-bulletin/2024-11-20/completed-application/town-of-lewis-oak-hill-wollastonite-mine.
Constitutional amendment
Article 14 of the state constitution prevents any sale, lease or destruction of timber on forest preserve lands, the public lands that make up just under half of the 6-million-acre Adirondack Park.
The state Legislature took unprecedented action, passing a constitutional amendment that conveyed 200 acres of the Jay Mountain Wilderness to NYCO Minerals in exchange for land of the same value. NYCO Minerals, once finished mining the forest preserve lands, would restore it and return it to the forest preserve.
While there have been other constitutional amendments for land swaps, they usually involved public benefits such as drinking water supplies, power lines and other infrastructure. This was the first constitutional amendment to convey land to a private company.
Voters on Nov. 5, 2013 passed the amendment with 53% support.
But little has happened with those forest preserve lands, called Lot 8, since. The DEC said the company has conducted mineral sampling, which will be used in part to determine the property’s market value. The DEC said it does not have this data.
Complicating matters is the fact that the constitutional amendment had no deadline for completion of a land swap. The DEC said it has no knowledge of NYCO’s timeline and deferred questions to the company. The state, meanwhile, continues to believe NYCO intends to mine in the 200 acres of wilderness.
Dunn said with the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, some staff were out and she could not answer questions about Lot 8 at this time.
Monty said since “Imerys took over, it’s gone quiet.”
He would like to see the mine remain open, though its promises of local jobs and highway maintenance have not been met. Imerys subcontracts most of the positions out of Vermont. Monty said there are only a few local people working in the mine and a few at the mill. There is one local truck driver.
“The economic value to us isn’t that great,” Monty said.
Top photo: A land swap with NYCO Minerals (foreground) would expand the Jay Mountain Wilderness, which stretches behind the mine. Photo by Carl Heilman ll
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