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ELLEN KOPLIN
Lower Milford Supervisor
The proposed Geryville Materials quarry is a crucial issue in the upcoming November 4 election.
Proficient in all things Township, Ellen has worked for 21 years to protect the welfare of the residents of Lower Milford, researching the detrimental changes a quarry would have on our residents lives.
This website will explore the facts presented in testimony over the course of the many hearings and challenges by the quarry, and the hazards the quarry would pose to ALL residents.
Please see Contact page for a copy of her first and second mailer
This would be my second term as your Township Supervisor. My name is familiar since I have been involved with our local government as Township Manager, Volunteer and now first term Supervisor. As former Manager, I understand the limitations our state legislators place upon Townships. Our ability to set our own course is quite limited, however, it is not impossible.
Most of our residents are aware that an application to our Township and PA Dept. of Environmental Protection has been made and revised several times over the past 21 years, to establish a stone quarry with an asphalt plant and a concrete plant. With the major Turnpike I-476 widening project along with several other major road projects, it has become known that the quarry applicant wants, “to make another run at it.” Meaning, try to push the application through the Lower Milford Board of Supervisors. With a quarry located within our township, the quarry owners/operators would have a very lucrative advantage when bidding for the contract to supply materials due to Limeport Pike heading straight for I-78, Route 309 and the PA Turnpike Northeast Extension I-476.
The Proposed Quarry
Please Do Not Be Misled
This Quarry WILL Effect Everyone
HOSENSACK to LIMEPORT
The current proposal provides a 100+ acre quarry pit on a 628 acre property, with an asphalt plant needing liquid asphalt brought to the site for making blacktop and a concrete plant needing cement and sand delivered to the site to manufacture concrete. We have 400 trucks per day hauling stone out of the quarry and additional trucks bringing supplies and picking up blacktop and delivering concrete. We will have blasting at the quarry site several times per week. For those living in the Beverly Hills/Limeport area, please do not think the quarry will not impact you and yours.
According to the testimony given for Geryville throughout the numerous cases over a 21 year period, the quarry itself will generate 400 hundred dump trucks per day averaging 18 to 23 tons per truck. We can expect a truck every two (2) minutes, from 7 AM to 10 PM, mingling with school buses and vans, family cars, commuters, farm tractors and equipment along with the many tractor trailers that are now using our local roads.
According to the most recent PennDOT traffic map, a total of 6,000 vehicles travel through the Village of Limeport daily. Now add the majority of dump trucks to the 6,000+ vehicle count in Limeport adding more diesel fumes, noise, engine brake retarders and dust.
Property Values Will Decline Affecting Taxes
Studies have been made in Pennsylvania and across the country on the detrimental effects of new and expanded quarries on property values. For the tax year 2023, the total assessed value of Lower Milford Township real estate was 396 million. The reduction in property values due to a quarry will lower the assessed value for the entire Township, likely in the millions, reducing the funding the Township receives from real estate tax. An increase in taxes will need to be placed on the entire Township to cover the loss.
All On the Road Together
Susan LaBrie, who is on the ballot, says she has lived in the Township for 30 years, however, never volunteered nor served the Township in any capacity, but wants to suddenly be a Supervisor. When asked by a resident what her position is on the quarry, she responded that she would need to review the files. She answered another resident that she would look at the options. A quarry with asphalt and concrete plants is not a complex industry. After 21 years of hearings and testimony, the irreparable harm to our residents from the quarry is very clear.
The quarry proposal is generating lots of attention. A group of people in a local restaurant were discussing a plan to change Lower Milford Township's regulations by removing authority from the Township's Planning Commission to approve Land Development, let the Board of Supervisors approve development and the quarry applicant will "make another run at it."
A generation of children have been born and reached adulthood while your Supervisors have fought hard to maintain all that is good about Lower Milford Township. Ten Supervisors have been in office since the quarry application crossed our doorstep. During those 21 years, no one worked harder with our Solicitor and Engineers than Ellen Koplin to fight for our Township residents' right to live without the harmful impacts and danger a quarry poses.
Since 2004, Geryville Materials submitted:
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Two applications to the Lower Milford Township Zoning Hearing Board
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Filed a Zoning Ordinance Validity Challenge with Curative Amendment to the Board of Supervisors
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Filed a challenge before the court seeking to have our Zoning Ordinance nullified due to perceived procedural defects in its adoption
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Filed a complaint that the Board of Supervisors was biased (which when a governing body takes a position for or against an application, it is baked into the pie)
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Filed a Land Development Plan with the Lower Milford Planning Commission
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Appeals to Lehigh County Common Pleas and Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court.
Ellen is the ONLY candidate that knows the quarry cases, our Township and how local government works.