Preserve Frederick
Promoting compatible development that strengthens our communities, protects our natural and historic resources and preserves our rural character.

Contact us: preservefrederick@yahoo.com

Preserve Frederick Publishes Second Sentinel on Mining Rezoning.
Attend the Public Hearing April 23 at 7pm at the County Government Office, 107 North Kent Street, Winchester. 

Preserve Frederick Releases Alternative for Middletown Mining Rezoning
After waiting nearly 16 months for O-N Minerals to rework its mining rezoning request near Middletown,Preserve Frederick sent the company an alternative plan August 31 that would retain mining rights and protect important natural and historic resources. In response, O-N Minerals continues to stall the project and ignore county residents' recommendations.

Details & Benefits of Alternative Plan
Significant Mining Rights Preserved: O-N Minerals facilities in Frederick County represent just 10 percent of the company’s known limestone reserves. Combined with existing operations, limestone on Parcel 90 A 23 (southern portion of map) would support mining operations for at least 30 years.

Historic Resources Preserved: The historic resources associated with the Battle of Cedar Creek are concentrated on Parcel 83 A 109 (northern portion of map). Historic resources on the southern parcel are already impacted visually by the existing limestone mining operation.

Natural Resources Protected: Properly designed buffers on the southern parcel can greatly reduce, mitigate or eliminate the impacts on Cedar Creek and rare plant and animal species upland.

Traffic, Dust, Noise Addressed: County staff recommendations would greatly reduce, mitigate or eliminate these impacts.

Preserve Frederick's Analysis of Mining Rezoning Options

Frederick County Planning Dept. Letter to O-N Minerals

Preserve Frederick Letter to O-N Minerals

Frederick Co. Chairman of Board of Supervisors Letter to O-N Minerals

Response from O-N Minerals

Massive Quarry Expansion Proposed

Rezoning would create a 1,200 acre industrial mining corridor two-thirds of a mile wide and more than 2.6 miles
long outside Middletown. Permitted uses would allow a full industrial mining site, like the one in Strasburg (above).

Cedar Creek, National Battlefield Park & Middletown to Feel Impacts

O-N Minerals filed an application in February 2006 to rezone 639 acres on Cedar Creek,
adjacent to the Cedar Creek Battlefield National Park and Middletown, from general agricultural
uses to extractive manufacturing. The proposed rezoning would nearly triple the existing
limestone mining operation and permit other industrial uses, with serious impacts on air, water,
traffic and quality of life.

The Frederick County Planning Commission on June 7, 2006 voted against the mine expansion
and has forwarded the application to the Board of Supervisors with a recommendation that it
be denied.

O-N Minerals (formerly known as Chemstone) says it needs to expand its limestone quarry
operations at the Middletown site. But by asking for such a large rezoning to extractive
manufacturing, O-N Minerals would create a huge industrial mining corridor two-thirds of a
mile wide and more than 2.6 miles long. Other permitted uses would include concrete and
asphalt manufacturing, crushed stone operations, brick, block and pre-cast concrete production,
oil and gas extraction, mining and processing sand and gravel, sewage treatment and public
utilities.

A traffic study required for the rezoning application projects an additional 1,400 dump trucks
from the site from expanded operations. That could amount to a dump truck a minute through
Middletown.

Local residents continue to study the potential impacts of these uses. Please check back as
we learn more about the impacts and alternatives to a wholesale rezoning of the quarry site.

As of summer 2007, no action has been taken by O-N to move their application forward to the
Frederick County Board of Supervisors.  The community residents and stakeholders continue
their wait for an acceptable resolution to this issue.