EAST ROCKHILL — Federal court isn’t the place to settle the legal disputes between the township and Rockhill Quarry, one of East Rockhill’s attorneys said as he updated residents at the Jan. 22 East Rockhill Township Board of Supervisors meeting on the legal battles.
A hearing was scheduled in Philadelphia on Jan. 28 and 29 for the federal case, but that hearing is now being rescheduled and a new date has not yet been set, John Rice said Jan. 27 in answer to an emailed question for this article.
At the Jan. 22 meeting, he had said there was a possibility the Jan. 28 and 29 federal court dates for the township case would be pushed back for a criminal case being heard by the same judge.
There has been a quarry on the Rockhill Road site for more than a century, but there’s been little activity since the early 1980s, the township and quarry say. The quarry says it has maintained required permits to resume operations. In 2018, the township denied the quarry’s application for a zoning permit and said the quarry would first have to get special exception approval from the zoning hearing board. Legal cases between the township and quarry are currently being waged both before the East Rockhill Township Zoning Hearing Board and in the federal court.
“The fact that you have a zoning case in federal court’s really unusual. Federal courts don’t usually take zoning cases,” Rice said at the Jan. 22 meeting.
“The township’s position is that this shouldn’t be here. This should be in front of the zoning hearing board, which is what the zoning hearing board is set up to do,” he said. “The quarry operation, any asphalt plant, any concrete plant, anything they want to do out there at that site should be in front of the zoning hearing board under the township zoning ordinance.”
The quarry’s position is that state mining laws preempt the township’s zoning laws, but if the court agreed with that, it would be the first time that’s ever happened in Pennsylvania, Rice said.
Residents in the area of the quarry have raised concerns including blasting, air and water pollution, noise, truck traffic and the effects on nearby wells if quarrying resumes.
In December, naturally occurring asbestos was found in the quarry, leading to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection ordering that mining and other quarry-related activity be stopped until more information is received and plans developed for dealing with the asbestos.
Rice said at the Jan. 22 meeting that R.E. Pierson Materials, the company renting the quarry, was preparing a plan for dealing with the asbestos but had not yet submitted it to the DEP.
“Once it gets submitted, the township will have an opportunity to address it,” he said.
The township has also appealed the issuance of a crusher permit and a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit to the quarry, he said.
In answer to questions from residents about attending the federal court hearing, Rice and the township board members said the judge has made it clear he’s interested in what local residents think.
“I’m sure the judge is going to look around as he did last time and see who’s there,” board Chairman Gary Volovnik said, “so it does mean something to the community if people show up.”
The purpose of the federal court hearing is to decide a narrow legal issue, Rice said.
“This is not a hearing on whether they met the requirements of DEP. It’s not really a hearing on whether they met the zoning requirements. Pierson has taken a pretty interesting position that all zoning is preempted,” Rice said. “No court’s ever said that in the state. Certainly, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s never said that.”
Even though the case is in federal court, the decision will be based on state law, he said.