Environment: All the Marble

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A fight was just what they got. It turned out that even if they weren't saying so, some Vermonters had had it with Omya. Part of the problem was the company's trucks, which rumble to and from the quarries all day long on two-lane roads built for country traffic, shaking windows, foundations and roadbeds. Then there's the blasting. Omya says it holds dynamiting to a minimum: just a couple of detonations a week, in late morning or midafternoon. But dynamite is dynamite, and when it blows it's hard to hide it. "I live 1,100 feet from a quarry," says Bill Church, 46, a machinist at the local General Electric plant. "Walls rattle; it's a real problem."

All of this, plus the white wound left when a mine is gouged out of a mountain, can only hurt property values. Carolyn Droge, 38, an artist who helps care for her elderly parents, tried to sell their airy, wood-beamed house overlooking the proposed mine site so her father could move closer to the hospital. A home that she believes should have sold practically overnight took many months to move. "Once buyers learned about the mine," she says, "they walked away."

For these and other reasons, Smith and her group decided to stop Omya before it could start digging, relying on a ferocious Internet, letter-writing and word-of-mouth campaign. The effort produced results: the company quickly retreated and has spent the past two years promising to come up with a way to better address quality-of-life issues.

One of the most vexing problems the company must tackle in Vermont is water. The extensive local marble deposits are shot through with underground springs that help keep whole stretches of the state hydrated. The risk exists that a badly placed mine could siphon away water and cause a large area to dry up. Omya is studying the problem by drilling test wells around the Danby site and measuring water levels as they change over the year. "We can proceed safely if the hydro studies say so," says Reddy. Smith is doubtful: "Some people worry that water in their ponds is already beginning to fall due to the mines Omya currently runs."

An equally knotty problem is the trucks. Omya would like to keep new traffic off the congested roads, and one way is by expanding rail shipments. Both the state and the company are lobbying for a new rail spur--financed by taxpayers and Omya--to connect the company's processing plant in Florence with its biggest quarry, in nearby Middlebury. Though the proposed mine in Danby would add trucks to the road, the Middlebury spur would take many more off, about four for every operating railcar.