Government Technology recently reported that residents of a small rural town in Ohio, USA believe they have evidence of the Rocky Ridge Development Company excavating down to the quarry bedrock and filling the abandoned quarry with waste from a nearby water treatment plant.
According to the report, Ohio’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had given the company permission to blend waste by-products at the site while scientists considered the risk of filling the pit with the materials back in 2014.
The materials in question included arsenic, copper, lead, mercury and nickel, with the arrangement dubbed ‘one of its kind’.
However, the EPA ‘insisted’ the company was required to leave a five-foot buffer between the bedrock and waste placement.
Now with the drone’s photos, the local residents aim to prove the company has not complied, and are calling for an immediate cease and desist order against the company.
In the complaint filed to the EPA, the residents said it is their “collective opinion Rocky Ridge Development is turning the property into a landfill for this material,” adding, “This was never intended by the state permit.”
According to the report, the EPA is in the process of reviewing the drone-produced photographs, but residents are ‘uneasy’ on how long it will take the EPA to review all of the relevant information and come to a decision.
In addition to taking photographs, drones – formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) – can be used to map and survey quarry sites, perform machinery inspections that might otherwise be hazardous, monitor vegetation, and assist in stockpile volume calculation and analysis.
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