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Home My WebLink About20061539 Ver 2_Public Comments_20120724D6 - t539 July 17, 2012 North Carolina Division of water Quality 1650 Mad Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699 1650 Attention Ms Cyndi Karoly RE Corps Action ID # SAW -2011 01762 Unimin Corporation In response to your PUBLIC NOTICE dated June 26, 2012, concerning the application from Unimin Corporation, my name is Denise Pittman I am 60 years old and have lived in the same location all my life, near what is now Unimin Corp, building a home near my parents when I married my husband, George Pittman He has lived here 32 years Over the years this mining operation has been Harris Clay, Harris Mining, etc and now Unimin Corp Prior to it becoming Unimin Corp we never had any problems Now we have nothing but problems Every day we either have a thick cloud of dust or a wet mess of their silt running down the Brushy Creek state road, into our ditches, then on to our streams We have seen the creeks totally white with their silt We have photographs to back this up We own three black, expensive vehicles, a Toyota 411unner, Ford Super Duty F -250, and Ford Super Duty F 350 that we can not keep clean for even 5 minutes We wash them on a dry day and they are covered with dust before we can get them into the garage We cannot take them out Brushy Creek Road without going thru Unimin s run off which makes a mess all over them and this is our only exit to the highway (19E) I have filed numerous complaints with the EPA Nothing has been done Oh, the EPA guys came out to Unimin, but made the statement to some folks at the Avery County Airport that they were not going to fine Unimin Corp because Unimin gave them a lot of money The airport had complained as well Even worse, I am surprised our house is still standing We built a very nice home in 1982 which we have kept updated with remodels, etc When Unimin blasts in their mines, there are times our whole house shakes and the windows (Anderson) sound as though they are breaking out I am sure our foundation has been compromised We have complained about this as well We never had any dust, no run off and never heard or felt anything from blasting prior to Unimin ownership We never even knew if or when they blasted I think this PUBLIC NOTICE should have been sent to all property owners in this a �^=� not just the ones with property joining Unimin Corp They are affected as well and I z can verify that everything we are writing is true w► We also own and operate our Sign Business in the same area, but closer to Brushy Creek Road We built a nice large building and moved our shop here in 2002 beca x r� it is a much better location than where we previously were Most of our signage is g computer generated, but there is still some painting such as sandblasted signs We cannot place a painted sign outside to dry because the paint gets full of Urnmin dust We are affected by their blasting here as well We have two 12 wide and 14 high garage doors for bringing in large trucks, etc to letter Numerous times when Unimin has blasted, we thought someone had ran into the garage door because the door made such a horrific noise Our shop has 12 cinder block poured walls, 16 high with a nice stucco finish on them Every block is poured with concrete We have cracks in the walls due to Urnmin Corp blasting These cracks continue to get larger with on going blasting, therefore our shop is compromised as well We own a rental house that is affected also A few years ago, Unimm Corp had a paint company out of Tennessee spraying the exterior of the high part of their building with a high temperature epoxy paint All of our vehicles as well as vehicles 3/4 miles away got covered with white paint and as I stated earlier, we always have black vehicles This happened twice They offered to have them cleaned with clay bar, but that can damage a vehicle, especially black It is very obvious to us that we are wasting our time going up against a big corporation like Ummin Even writing this letter is a waste of time Urnmm Corp gets what they want and the people living close to them have to suffer If we had even dreamed we would have these problems, we would never have made this our home For what it s worth, we are against Ummin Corp expanding any mines for obvious reasons We have numerous photographs to prove our complaints Denise O Pittman---- - - - - -- George E Pittman 54 Skyhook Lane Spruce Pine, NC 28777 Home Phone 828 765 9235 Work Phone 828 - 765 -9535