Testimony Continues on Quarry Plans

Two more witnesses for Millington Quarry — including a geotechnical expert who talked about the characteristics of the land where homes may someday be built, and another engineer who discussed soil and rock to be brought in after quarrying stops — spoke at a continuation of a Planning Board hearing on plans for the quarry's retirement.

The second witness, municipal and civil engineer Kevin Page, is scheduled to answer questions from the public at the next scheduled hearing before the , set for next Tuesday, Feb. 7.

One more witness, a landscape architect, is scheduled to testify on the quarry's behalf after Page's testimony is complete, said Mark Morgan, one of the attorneys representing the quarry.

Morgan and attorney Michael Lavigne said whether additional testimony on behalf of the quarry plan is needed after that will depend on the questions received from the Planning Board, public and experts to examine the reclamation plan on behalf of the township.

On Tuesday night, Page testified that about 421,000 cubic yards of top soil and about 156,000 cubic yards of rock would be part of the quarry's "reclamation plan" to prepare the 180-acre site off Stonehouse Road for redevelopment after all quarry operations cease. Most of the top soil would be placed on a meadow that could potentially be used for a residential development, and the rock would line a proposed 50-acre lake.

"Basically, the entire property is like a giant bowl," where all slopes onto the property drain down to a pond that would be enlarged into a lake under the proposed reclamation plan, Page said.

Page said the current reclamation plan — which would need the recommendation of the Planning Board for final approval by the Township Committee — calls for bringing in less material than in previous reclamation proposals.

Representatives for the quarry said the Township Committee had approved a 2003 reclamation plan, although not the proposed 2008 update.

"We did not just go in and start padding slopes" without the township's previous approval, Lavigne told the board.

However, soil and other fill truck into the quarry site to fill in quarried areas prior to 2008 showed contamination in random samplings by township consultants. Millington Quarry is now working with the state Department of Environmental Protection to identify and clean up areas of the property with contaminated soil.

was how to guarantee that the quality of the soil to would be brought into the property as topsoil or fill would be adequately monitored.

This week, geotechnical engineer Robert Schwankert testified that the land to receive a covering of topsoil is basically bedrock, some of it broken up by quarrying, along a graduate 10-percent slope.

After regrading and being covered with topsoil, that bedrock base, mostly shale, would be a good base for any future residential development, if it occurs, Schwankert said.

Schwankert said that it appeared to him that random piles of fill left on quarried property were native to the site, rather than imported soil or rock.

Lavigne emphasized that there is no plan before the board at this time for a residential project and that would need to be the subject of a future application.

The Planning Board is charged with deciding whether to advise the Township Committee to give final approval to the quarry's latest reclamation plan, which must be updated every few years.

The Township Committee also has the option of recommending that the quarry's proposal be modified. That process bogged down a previous post-quarrying plan that went before the governing body in 2008 — and never received final approval.