Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Mill Creek - Meeting with Teresa Marks of ADEQ

Previous Mill Creek entries:

Bartmess Open Pit Mine Application

Friends Website:

Desecration of Mill Creek

This report was received from Tammi Trotter of the Friends of Mill Creek:

The meeting with ADEQ Director Teresa Marks on the mining issue of B&H Resources in Calico Rock was a great success. There were approximately 80 people in attendance to include Sen. Paul Miller, Izard County Judge Rayburn Finley and 3 Izard County J.P.'s. George Bartmess, one of the owners of B&H Resources was also in attendance. Teresa Marks had 7 ADEQ employees with her. Tammi Trotter started the meeting by greeting guests and telling about Friends of Mill and Piney Creeks, Jerry Weber then talked about Friends of North Fork and White Rivers and introduced Teresa Marks. She gave a power point presentation with pictures of the damage to the banks and sediment in the creek. She basically said that ADEQ would not be issuing a permit at this time, since B&H's original application was technically incomplete, and they feel that, if Bartmess actually pursues the mining permit in this same location, the permit would be denied because “there cannot be a sufficient buffer zone to protect the creek”. But they do have an appeals process, which he will most likely pursue.
She also stated that they expect a remediation plan from B&H Resources which will need to be approved by ADEQ. The issue will probably go to litigation since he denies any wrongdoing and he says the damage was caused by the floods. Leon Alexander was also in attendance and talked about the Baxter County ordinance which several members were interested and want to pursue a similar ordinance for Izard County

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