Bamboozle is dead on. Quarries create a lot of jobs and cause a lot of environmental problems, most notably sinkholes, well failures and springs going dry. Essentially a limestone quarry digs up and removes the limestone layer of the earth's crust -- the aquifer -- that had been the geological basis for the limestone springs that we all like so much. It's a trade-off. The Italian owned firm (not Chinese) that owns Hercules is Buzzi Unicem. Resource extraction companies (coal, oil, gold, lead, bauxite etc.) are pretty much all massive multi-nationals -- the faceless, nameless corporation that owns everything. As was also raised in this thread, they tend to regard paying fines as a cost of doing business (I agree with the idea of fining the individuals rather than the company, but the lobbying abilities of these firms will never allow that to happen). Unfortunately, because they have so much money and influence, one of the only ways to make any headway with them is to make nice with the local plant manager. Down in Havre de Grace, Md. the town had some success in coordinating with the gravel quarry along the Susquehanna river to deal with dump truck traffic and blasting, both of which were affecting a large neighborhood in the town. The site manager was also a member of the larger community (as are all the employees) and they're generally amenable to doing what they can to make nice with their neighbors. Going in and threatening lawsuits and government crackdowns is a threat to their livelihoods. Accommodating neighbors and friends is generally something we all want to do. If there was a problem with Pa. not allowing a backup generator (which sounds like a bunch of made-up bs to me, but it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong), a little bit of community (registered voter) involvement could have nudged the state in the right direction and a generator would have been in place.
The unfortunate reality is, once Hercules shuts down, the creek is finished. The creek relies on pumped water. Once the company is gone and the pumping stops, the quarry will fill up and warm surface water will be what ends up in the creek.
My fear for years is for a similar fate at the Letort because that quarry is also removing aquifer.
John Prine explained it much more eloquently, albeit from the perspective of coal mining:
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal 'til the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man
And daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
