Tarmac, clammers resolve water issues

Cedar Key Beacon – Published April 28, 2011


By Ada Lang

Tarmac and the Cedar Key Aquaculture Association have successfully resolved the issue that has vexed them for months — monitoring water quality to assure the clam industry is protected.

The two sides met in Cedar Key on Monday and say all involved agreed to terms that should make them relatively happy. Although the mine will be located miles from the island, concerns about its effects on water quality were raised months ago.

In a letter provided to the Cedar Key Beacon, Tarmac King Road Mine Plant Manager Jeff Harris pledged that the company will do surface and ground water sampling before any water leaves their property.

Harris also pledged the company will install three stations in the Waccassassa Bay area near their plant to monitor water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and pH. They will be located on three state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Shellfish Environmental Assessment Section station locations.

The monitors will be installed in two phases. In the first phase the reading will be handled manually, according to Harris. In the second phase the monitors will go "live" providing realtime data available by computer.

The continuous water monitoring program that will “provide a level of assurance that no harm will be done to the fishing and seafood industries in Cedar Key” will be established and maintained for life of the mine’s operation. The company has applied for a special exception permit to mine for hard rock limestone in the area near Inglis and Yankeetown for 100 years.

Rose Cantwell, President of the Cedar Key Aquaculture Association, said, “They really stepped up to the plate.” She said she “doesn’t want to sound over zealous, but hopefully this will set a precedent so that in the future, there will be more collaboration” between commercial development and industries in areas of environmental concern.

Tarmac officials approached the association in August 2010 after Tarmac applied to Levy County for the permit. They met with officials in the area, trying to determine if there were any concerns about the mine. They were pointed in the direction of the association and that began an “effort to be a good neighbor with Cedar Key — voluntarily,” Harris said.

The road to this collaboration was not always smooth. During earlier meetings Tarmac said it backed the water monitoring station plan, and in return the Association would not speak against the mine at the Levy County Planning

Commission meeting in April. However, at a meeting in Cedar Key on Thursday afternoon, Tarmac was presented with the start-up cost for the monitoring system and learned it was more expensive than anticipated, according to Harris. He said he was not able to commit to the full amount without approval from higher up in his organization.

With a quasi-judicial hearing on the permit by the Levy County Commission set for Tuesday, May 3, in Bronson, Tarmac went back to the drawing board and drafted the proposal that all involved agreed to on Monday.

City Commissioner Sue Colson, a member of the Association, said that she is very pleased with the outcome of the meeting because while the monitoring stations were not required by law, they will “provide invaluable real time data” and allow a “fast response, early investigation and problem solving” in the event of a water quality issue.

“Their commitment to us in this letter, is public now and ensures that they will perform,” Colson said. She praised their “methodology of reaching out and prevention.” Others present at the meeting reminded Harris that creating a mining job in Levy County is great, as long as it doesn’t cost an aquaculture job and reminded everyone present that one of the missions of the association is to be proactive about anything that could potentially degrade waters in the area. According to Harris, once all the environmental permits are in place, the very earliest that the monitoring would begin would be in January 2012. Two stations will be deployed initially “but at least six months before any further development is initiated on the mine site.”

A third monitoring station “will be deployed before Tarmac begins excavation to produce material for sale” which is expected to be in 2014 and “real time water data recording which will be uploaded to a server and accessible by the Cedar Key Aquaculture Association.”

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