We Get Email… And Make One Correction

The following email has arrived in our mailbox at faces@post.com. We will edit out the sender’s name and email address for our reply, the rest is word-for-word.

From:
To: <faces@post.com>
CC:
Subject: facts not right
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 19:52:47 -0400

---

99% not right , one picture of uncovered truck ,the truck is covered . This sight is a joke , the rocks in the road are washing off road side . I don’t know how long you have lived there but you should know that on that hill. I have never seen rocks blown off a truck before either . GET A JOB AND QIUT BEING SO BITTER . putting someones picture on here is against the law you are slandering those company’s you should be careful setting up on your hill . I care too , but get it right. Sounds personal . must have couldn’t done your job some where.

End email.

Our reply:

First of all we will stand corrected in that the one truck passing Skip’s Restaurant is apparently covered. We acknowledge this error and apologize for it. When we are incorrect we will admit it. The photo in question was immediately removed. Thanks for pointing that out.

As to the rocks washing off the hill, we must disagree. The rocks shown are in the road just past the white line at the end of Carver Road and the others are along the sidewalk curb on the Patrick Avenue side of the same area. These are clearly gray gravel and are not washing off Carver Road into the roadway, also there are no such rocks along the curbside. There were two huge, deep rock spills from trucks in recent months as mentioned in the article. One was right near Skip’s at between 7:30 and 8:00 on a weekday If we can get decent video captures off the tape we will post them.

As for a job, all of our members already have jobs and we aren’t bitter. It is not against the law to take photos of traffic in the public highway. We honestly thought that one truck photographed was uncovered and have acknowledged the mistake. We have nothing personal against any of the company’s and none of us have any connection to them past or present.

They Will Rock You

A few weeks ago FACES received several reports that the Virginia State Police had received at least 4 complaints about rocks in the road causing problems for motorists around the area of the Boxley quarry including cracked windshields. This is nothing new in the area. There is a large number of uncovered trucks leaving the quarry uncovered and spilling gravel into the roadway, especially when making turns from stop signs or going around curves. Last winter FACES communicated with state Senator Roscoe Reynolds about the piles of gravel that had laid in the intersection of Carver Road and Patrick Avenue just above Skip’s Restaurant for months. We are told that VDOT is responsible for cleaning this up - at taxpayer expense we might add- but Lisa Price Hughes of VDOT was shall we say “less than helpful” in our opinion when contacted and said they could not be bothered to clean up “every 3 or 4 days”. So if someone has an accident or gets their vehicle damaged perhaps you can thank Ms. Hughes for her lack of concern. If a rock flies up and hits your windshield is that just your hard luck when all these trucks are spilling rock? What defines a “public nuisance”?

Thanks to help from Senator Reynolds VDOT finally got the mess cleaned up last winter after much effort to push them to do so. Senator Reynolds also helped to arrange a meeting between FACES and the Virginia State Police, however the problem with uncovered trucks is continuing mostly unabated. In the last few months there have been two very large gravel spills- one near Skip’s Restaurant and one in the curve at the underpass on Carver Road. These large spills did get cleaned up rather quickly, probably at taxpayer expense.

FACES has decided to start taking photographs of uncovered trucks and publishing some of them. Today we feature 3 trucks who drove uncovered through the intersection of Carver Road and Patrick Avenue during a period of approximately 45 minutes on Friday afternoon May 23. There were some others but unfortunately those photos did not turn out. Hazelwood Trucking of Stuart has the distinction of having 2 of the first 3 published uncovered trucks. Does Hazelwood cover any of their trucks? At this time we will not publish any photos showing license tag numbers, but if the problem persists we might in the future. FACES members will continue to photograph and videotape these trucks as we see them.

Update: An email has pointed out that we were in error concerning the truck picture passing Skip’s restaurant and that the cover was apparently in place. The photo in question has been removed from this posting. This was an honest mistake which we  apologize for.

An Open Letter To DEQ Concerning Water Withdrawal

Editor’s Note: Amounts from documentation obtained from the Department of Environmental Quality under the Freedom of Information Act appear to indicate that Boxley Materials withdrew a certain amount of water from Jordan Creek between 2000 and 2006. FACES made numerous attempts via both phone and email to substantiate the accuracy and interpretation of what is shown in the DEQ files with 4 DEQ personnel. Planned articles for this website have been delayed while attempting verification. Finally upon one DEQ manager’s declining to answer in writing and answering, “I would assume so” by telephone, we decided to write this open letter to DEQ. This letter is requesting verification of information in a government entity’s files and makes no statement or claim that the amounts questioned are correct until officially verified.

Original email of April 17^th to DEQ:

Dear Ms. Stephenson:

I am trying to correctly interpret the information that was sent to me via email in spreadsheet format by Wanda Bowman from your office on December 11, 2007. In viewing this data it appears that for the year 2005 that Boxley withdrew 27.47 million gallons of water from Jordan Creek and their sand plant withdrew another 7.12 million gallons during the same year. By these calculations that would mean that a total of 44.6 million gallons of water was withdrawn by the combined operations of Boxley and their sand plant in 2005. (Editor’s Note: This amount was a typographical error it should read 34.59 million gallons, we left it unchanged to keep the original email as is) Is this correct? It was my understanding from speaking with DEQ employees during a FOIA visit to your offices that this water was withdrawn from the creek with no requirement that Boxley have a permit to do so. Is this understanding correct? It is my assumption that once the water is withdrawn it is used by the company and therefore no water would be left over to be put back into the creek. Is this understanding correct? If any remainder of the water is somehow put back into the creek I would have other questions concerning this process, but at present I assume all water withdrawn is used unless notified otherwise. Please respond via email, we want to have verification of a correct understanding of this procedure and need an official comment from the DEQ.

Thank You,

Fieldale And Carver Environmental Society

The Open Letter:

April 30, 2008

An Open Letter to:

Department of Environmental Quality

3019 Peters Creek Road

Roanoke, VA 24019

Dear Sirs:

I represent Fieldale And Carver Environmental Society. One of our goals is to provide the residents of our community with accurate information about issues of concern to many residents. For the past few weeks we have made numerous attempts by both phone and email to substantiate, fact check, and ensure the accuracy and interpretation of what is reported in some documentation that we obtained from your department. We would like to publish educational articles and fact sheets that provide accurate information to our community. It is our understanding that the DEQ is the Commonwealth’s regulatory authority and source of record of these matters. In a previous request emailed to Mr. Joseph Hassell requesting a written comment he declined to respond in written form. We have previously corresponded with Mr. Hassell and 3 other DEQ employees in attempting to get verification of the correctness of our interpretation of the data we received from DEQ. Therefore we ask that someone from DEQ please read the following statements and advise us in writing via mail within a reasonable time period as to any inaccuracy in the following statements:

We reviewed a water withdrawal record for Jordan Creek covering the years 2000 through 2006. The records indicated that a “sand plant” started being reported in 2003. This plant’s addition apparently increased Boxley’s water withdrawal from an already interesting quantity of 12.12 million gallons in 2002 to 19.2 million gallons in 2003 and 17.03 million gallons in 2004. In 2005 the amount increased to 34.59 million gallons for that year. The numbers reported for 2006, the last year available at the time of our visit, returned to 17.4 million gallons. It appears that beginning in 2003 consumption had increased by an additional 5 million or more gallons per year above and beyond the 2002 reported consumption. The records appear to show that the total amount of water that Boxley consumed from Jordan Creek during the years 2000 through 2006 was 124.46 million gallons of water. It is our further understanding that due to “grandfathering” Boxley is exempt from the regulation found in chapter 210 of the Virginia Administrative Code and therefore this water is withdrawn without a permit. We have not been advised that this withdrawal of water from Jordan Creek is subject to any regulatory oversight. We also understand that these reports consist of amounts that are reported by the company themselves without any independent regulatory verification.

Thank You,