Matt Mills, the owner of Legacy Mining Company, said he is not currently planning to reapply to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) for Notifications of Intent (NOIs) to Quarry on about 600 acres of land off Rockhouse Road near the Kings River.
“We are pausing the permitting process to complete additional environmental studies, specifically, impact to groundwater when using non-explosive techniques to mine,” Mills wrote in an email.
Mills said exploratory drilling and testing should be completed in a few weeks. The exploratory drilling has raised concerns from neighboring property owners who fear a rock quarry on the site that is underlain by a maze-like karst substructure could damage wells, springs, caves, sinkholes, their property values and sense of well-being. About 75 people attended a public meeting July 12 in Berryville to express concerns about the potential impacts of a rock quarry at the mountainous rural site.
Earlier quarry opponents were successful in stopping progress on permitting for NOIs on the property based on errors in the public notice. ADEQ said the company must start over with filing the notices for proposed mining activities.
Sen. Bob Ballinger, who attended the July 12 public meeting, said it’s good news that Legacy is standing down from applying for permits at present.
“People should be watchful, but be cautiously optimistic as I am,” Ballinger said. “I don’t think Legacy will ever move forward with a mining operation at this site. In the end, we could be in a better spot than before with that property.”
Legacy Mining Company has placed conservation easements on acreage surrounding the Ozark Southern Stone quarry that it owns in Elk Ranch, a quarry that has been in operation since 1883. While quarrying will continue on the site owned by Legacy Mining, the company has placed property it purchased surrounding the quarry into conservation easements. Legacy Mining provided the Independent with copies of the conservation easement documents.
Mills is also a principal with the investment group Sixty West that provides investment opportunities, including those for tax credits for putting property into conservation easements.
Ballinger said it is good that the area around Ozark Southern Stone has been protected. He said if they use the same model at the Kings River quarry that has been used by this company historically, that would be wonderful.
“If they can demonstrate minable stone there, then they can negotiate a conservation easement if they commit to never mining,” Ballinger said. “The area around Ozark Southern Stone has been protected. I think we will see the same thing happening in the Rockhouse Road area. In the end, I think we will be better off than before Legacy if that property is locked away and not used for mining or any other industrial operations, and preserved in pretty much a natural state.”
Ballinger said he would like to see opportunities for public recreation on the site.
Mills said much of the stone used to build Eureka Springs came from the Ozark Southern Stone quarry, which currently employs 11 people. He said he is approaching the National Park Service about putting it on the National Register of Historic Places.
The announcement by Legacy Mining about delaying permit applications for the property near Keels Creek, Winona Creek and the Kings River comes at a time when the campaign against the quarry has been gathering speed. For example, Ozark River Stewards recently posted information on its Facebook page urging people to take action to oppose the quarry. The post said limestone quarries require removal of trees and soil overburden that may be more than 100-foot deep, and then use explosives and heavy equipment to create benches from which stone can be cut.
“Once created, quarried sites remain scars on the landscape,” the post said. “Restoration is nearly impossible and damage to the ecosystem is unavoidable.”
However, Mills said the company does not plan blasting. Instead, they proposed to use a product called Dexpan that is placed into holes drilled into the limestone, and then expands cracking the rock. Dexpan is what is used at Ozark Southern Stone instead of blasting.
“Ozark Southern Stone is your source for Dexpan, a non-explosive demolition agent,” states the website for the quarry. “In dimensional stone quarries blasting wastes and damages valuable stone. Dexpan is a great alternative to blasting, it was created to help extract stone with very little waste.”
Eureka Springs resident Paula Koch said she hopes local opponents are successful in stopping the quarry near the Kings River before it is ever permitted. Koch lived in Lake Lotawana east of Kansas City, Mo., from 1997 until 2007. When she lived there, the Barber Quarry operation was located across the lake from her. Although she lived about three miles from the quarry, she was sometimes awakened in the middle of the night by blasting operations that made her house shake.
“The other big thing was particulate matter,” Koch said. “I had several outdoor glass top tables. It was several times a day that we had to wipe this gritty material off them. I wasn’t nearly as affected as people on the west side of the lake who had foundation cracks in their houses and patio. Since this was upstream from me, I was also concerned about water quality impacts from the operation. It was just a huge problem.”
Koch said it took full-out community involvement and a lot of money in attorneys’ fees just to keep it under control.
“The Barber Quarry ceased operations only because he chose to cease operations, not because he was shut down,” Koch said. “The only way to prevent this Kings River quarry is to stop it before it really gets cooking. We didn’t have the benefit of that at Lotawana. We are lucky to have that here.”
I’m glad they are reassessing their plans. The use of non-explosive expanding material is just one of the things they might have shared had someone from the company attended the meeting. But the destruction of large swaths of tree covered hillsides, exposing benches of raw stone would alter the watershed and river. And where would all the dirt and ground cover end up once dozed off?