Commentary: Open Forum

Winchester Star
September 2, 2006

Water Agreement – Are FCSA, O-N being up front on pact?
*Click here to view the contract between FCSA and O-N

By Tara Shostek

This Open Forum letter is in response to the Aug. 30 “Our Opinion” in The Star, and several other Star articles that address the lease agreement between the Frederick County Sanitation Authority and O-N Minerals (Chemstone).

That opinion says that the agreement gives the FSCA “the rights to any water left in the quarries once mining operations are completed… [and that] the FCSA will defray the costs of this rezoning application.” This is not a full description of the FCSA agreement.

Under the agreement, the FCSA has the right to access water from the “water-filled quarries” and “the unlimited right to extract water from the quarry pits…” This means that the FCSA has the right to pull water from the pits during mining, and that it does not have to wait for mining to be finished.

Although Chemstone and the FCSA have said that the FCSA does not intend to draw water out of the Middletown pit until quarrying is finished (30-50 years from now), that is not what their agreement says.

The agreement also requires the FCSA to do more than ‘defray the costs of [Chemstone’s] application.” The FCSA is responsible for paying all costs associated with the applications, including the application fining fee ($66,963), consulting, engineering, and attorney fees and the costs of going to court if the rezoning application is denied.

Before this is done, it will likely cost the FCSA, and its rate-payers, hundreds of thousands of dollars. The agreement essentially gives Chemstone a blank check out of the FCSA’s checkbook, the costs of which will trickle down to its rate-payers.

While according to Chemstone officials, the FCSA does draw water out of the Clearbrook quarry under this agreement, the FCSA isn’t going to see water from the Middletown or Strasburg quarries for decades. Why are today’s rate-payers responsible for paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for water they may never use? Because, despite what we are being told, the FCSA is not likely to wait that long before it draws water from these properties.