Note: The following is not a verbatim transcript of the Zoning Hearing Board meeting; it is simply one person’s summary of the major points made by those involved in the hearing process.  For that reason, quotation marks are not used unless a direct quote was recorded.  For information about obtaining an official ZHB transcript, contact the New Hanover Township office.

What is GR 2?

Note: Ms. Rebecca Bell, the attorney who had previously represented the zoning hearing board will no longer be involved in these proceedings.  Mr. Edward Skypala will now act as the zoning hearing board’s attorney. 

The meeting began with attorney Mr. Lawrence Sager, (representing Louis Farrell of Atomic International) cross-examining Mr. Louis Fatorio of EarthRes, an environmental engineering firm.  Fatorio was presented as a hydrogeologist.  

Sager spent the best part of an hour asking questions about the aquifer under the proposed quarry pit.  He entered into evidence blank pieces of poster paper on which he asked Fatorio to draw a three dimensional picture of the quarry and the aquifer. Fatorio smugly pronounced that he was not an artist and would not draw what Sager asked.  

Fatorio did say that there are artesian wells below the surface and are confined within the surrounding rock.  What both Sager and Fatorio were trying to say is best illustrated in this drawing:

Fatorio and Sager were trying to illustrate and say that the water in the aquifer exists in interconnected channels.  Fatorio admitted that after quarrying this land that the aquifer would pour into a ‘big hole” (the quarry).

Fatorio mentioned that the estimated amount of water pumped from both pits of the proposed quarry would be 386,000 gallons/day (the equivalent of 53 residential wells.)

For some reason Fatorio seemed extremely arrogant while testifying.  He also made an offensive joke about the nationality of Sager’s calculator.  Correction: Mr. Uday Patankar provided us with a copy of a Web page that explains what we misinterpreted as an offensive joke by Mr. Fatorio. Fatorio had mentioned something about a "Polish calculator." Both Mr. Sager and many of us in the audience took offense at the comment.  However, upon reading what Mr. Patankar provided, it's obvious we made a mistake about Mr. Fatorio making an offensive joke. Other observations about Fatorio still hold, however.

When Sager asked him about maintaining the aquifer, he said the only way to maintain the water is to pump it back into the ground through a process called deep water injection.

Mr. Bob Brant, attorney for the township, asked him if anyone in EarthRes made an attempt to ascertain how the proposed quarry would affect the surrounding wells.  Fatorio said they did not.

The next GR 2 meeting is June 17, 2004 at the New Hanover Township Building, 7:00 PM.