Fill not part of quarry closure plan

SAUGUS – The plan to fill in a portion of Aggregate Industries’ Route 99 quarry is not yet a done deal and it is not part of bigger plan to close the quarry – yet.
Environmental and Estates Manager Scott Colby said Monday that the quarry was still in negotiations with the contractor who controls the fill and nothing had been finalized yet.
Town Meeting members Janet Leuci and Al DiNardo raised concern when the Board of Health granted Aggregate a permit to bring up to 250,000 cubic yards of fill into the quarry. Truck traffic topped the list of worries along with a bigger question: is bringing in the fill part of an overall quarry closure plan?
“Aggregate has plans to develop a master plan for the quarry’s closure – the whole ball of wax – but we have not developed one yet,” Colby said.
In fact, Colby said the fill wouldn’t prevent Aggregate from further removing rock from the quarry even though it hasn’t done so in nearly two years.
“We’re not done extracting rock,” he said. “We have been maintaining our right to actively extract rock.”
Colby said it is the quarry’s plan to not only develop a future closure plan, but to also work closely with town officials and residents in doing so.
When a quarry closes, one of two things can be done, leave the land alone and the giant hole in the ground will eventually fill with water. Or Colby said, fill the pit in with clean fill.
Colby said allowing the quarry to simply fill with water can propose a danger if the area isn’t properly fenced or monitored somehow. The quarry in Quincy was the site of several drownings and, once it was finally drained, it proved to be a vast dumping ground for vehicles and other debris.
While filling in the Aggregate quarry with earthen materials could take considerable time, Colby said one plus is it would leave the community with a usable piece of land.
Either way, he noted the actual closure would be a long way off.
The company is just beginning talks regarding a closure plan for its Peabody location. Colby said while the master plan for the closure must be completed by mid-2009, the actual closure won’t happen for another 20-years or so.
The fill destined for the Route 99 quarry, however, is aimed at filling in a low spot in one portion of the quarry and nothing more. Colby said the quarry got the opportunity to bring in marine clay from a Harvard University building project and it decided to take it. The project will represent 5 percent of the quarry and will take six to eight months to complete with an estimated 80 trucks running in and out per day. Colby was quick to add that not all of the fill was staying in Saugus – some is destined for Swampscott and Peabody.
“It makes sense they want to bring it here because this would be closest to them, but we don’t yet have a deal in place to even take it in.”