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Chair Carey said that this issue was not the focus of that meeting. <br />4} Why did the public hearing notice say 164 acres in the industrial node and now it <br />is 180 acres? <br />Craig Benedict said that he researched the acreage back to 1904. He said that the area <br />that is part of the certified special use application with the County includes the larger amount of <br />180 acres. There will be variances between the original application and what the staff uncovered <br />in the original legal descriptions. <br />5) Why would a quarry of 3.0 billion gallons be of any advantage over a quarry of 2.3 <br />billion gallons? <br />Peter Gordon said that the difference is .7 billion gallons, and that is in the range of 1.4 <br />million gallons a day of water supply. OWASA believes that they do not knave haw much water will <br />be needed, but they believe firmly that if everything is shaved back and pushed to the margin, then <br />the likelihood of problems or shortages is increased. <br />6) Will the expanded quarry affect water levels or well water quality, and if it affects <br />well water quality and quantity in the future, what recourse would residents in the <br />area have? <br />Peter Gordon said that this was addressed in the supplemental environmental impact <br />statement and also in the mitigation as a result of the mediation. There is no evidence to date that <br />the quarrying operation has affected the water table. He said that there is also not a good reason <br />to believe that blasting would affect the wells. If experts determine that there is a real probability, <br />but short of a certainty, that the quarry operation affected a well, then that well would be fixed at <br />American Stone Company's expense. For houses within 3,000 feet that were built prior to 1978, <br />American Stone Company and OWASA will together pay 50°~ of the cost of re-digging wells that <br />fail without any proof that the failure was related to the quarrying operation. <br />7) What guarantee is there that the completed quarry will be suitable for holding <br />water? Will the amendment to the land use plan allow other growth in a restricted <br />area? <br />Peter Gordan said that the current pit holds water, and OWASA commissioned an expert to <br />study the pit that is currently being excavated. The study indicates that the pit would hold water. <br />In regards to the second question, he said that after 2030, the 160-acre site that OWASA will own <br />will only be used for water storage and buffer between water storage and some modest activity <br />associated with transferring water. <br />Craig Benedict said that the extractive use is part of the joint planning agreement within the <br />rural buffer. This is an expansion of that extractive use. <br />Jim Ward asked, regarding the water holding ability of the expanded quarry, how much of a <br />guarantee historically is there that the expansion would do the same thing. <br />Peter Gordon said that these sites are very close together. He said that quarries are used <br />far water storage around the East coast fairly frequently. <br />8) Why did OWASA change its population projections from curves that flatten to add <br />build out to straight lines? <br />Peter Gordon said that historically OWASA used a population forecasting method that saw <br />growth as being a constant proportion of around three- percent each year. He said that there was <br />a ceiling that OWASA used that flattened the numbers out since it could not grow three percent <br />