20211115_P-Horne

Good evening Mining Commission. I want to personally thank each of you
for making the trip to Gaston County. My name is Pam Garrison Horne and
our family lives at 2021 & 2009 Hephzibah Church Road. My family has
lived in this area since 1985 on around 10 acers of beautiful land. I got
married and moved to the city for 3 years. City life was not for me. Yes, we
are for the environment, that's why we have particular concern about this
mining permit application and the impact to public safety of our neighboring
citizens health and wildlife. Your mission statement is to protect the
environment and its citizens, and I have serious concerns about this
proposed 1,500 acre mine in our immediate community. The largest pit
being less than 1 mile from our home. Our plan was to stay here, grow old
here and die here.
• As a child, I remember the daily blasting at 3 PM. It was
unforgettable, the ground would shake, my Dad's business building
would make horrible noises. I'll never forget that sound like a bomb
going off once a day. At our house, which was less than 4 miles
away from the mine, family photos and anything hanging on the wall
would often fall off the walls. It was violent hard rock blasting that
was a danger to the public then - and that was only once a day. My
parent's home has signs of the blasting. We currently live less than 1

mile from the mine with amazing neighbors here in the room together.
We live here because of the quiet environment, lack of traffic, wildlife,
and clean air. How is that going to change and why should we have
to be burdened with dust, noise, traffic, and vibrations. We've asked
many of our neighbors and local officials and no one has ever gotten
a straightforward answer from Piedmont about their intended blasting
schedule other than an aggressive blasting schedule more than once
per day. That's not acceptable.
• How will our clean clear drinking water wells be impacted? Our water
table in this area is close to the surface and our rock is fractured.
While I read about the onsite impacts to existing drinking water wells,
who is paying attention to those offsite wells? We've had
conversations with hydrologists suggesting that no one really knows
exactly how the water flows underground through our fractured rock.
Water aquifers in the area over a mile away from the mine site could
be impacted. Our neighbor has five natural springs on his property.
What happens when they go dry?
1 know people that have worked at the FMC/Livent or I say still
Lithium plant and know that is a very dangerous place to work.

• There are many fault lines that run through this area, what will the
blasting do along those lines and how will that impact our water and
drinking wells? Not only is it my concern that our drinking water is in
danger, but what about the wildlife?
There are simply too many unknowns and too many dangers to our citizens
in this area. This is not South America, or Australia, or even Ghana or
Canada where these mines are remote often 10 miles from any populous
areas. We have about 1,500 citizens per square mile in this area and new
houses being built at an increasing pace. Are we going to trust our health,
our water, and our properties to Piedmont Lithium who has never opened,
run, or more importantly closed a mine? Do they even have the funds
today to undertake such a project? Every conversation we've heard about
Piedmont is that they are trying to raise the money as they don't have it
today. Why would the NC Mining Commission consider providing a permit
to a company that admits they don't have the funding for this project?
What are they going to leave us with? We have several examples of
shuttered mines in this area by well -funded and experienced operators that
are Superfund sites with high levels of arsenic in their pits.

Thank you for your time for this hearing and I certainly can't imagine that
the NC Mining Commission would consider issuing a permit given the
short- and long-term dangers this proposed mine has for our citizens and
our community.
would like to submit my printed notes for the public record.
Thank you.
QPWYLIn- OW
Pam Garrison Horne
2021 Hephzibah Church Road
Bessemer City NC 28016
704-472-9760
II-15--ca �