A New York appellate court has rejected the state permit given to a Sand Land sand mine in Noyack. This follows a multi-year effort to close the pit for good.
In 2019, the state Department of Environmental Conservation allowed the Sand Land Corporation to operate the mine for eight years. The permit also allowed them to mine an additional 40 feet deeper.
Environmentalists were alarmed when the permit was announced, because the state had turned the permit down a few months earlier. Officials had even ordered the mine to close within two years.
The environmentalists pointed to tests of the groundwater beneath the mine that was contaminated with pollutants.
The state had said they didn’t know if the sand mining operation was the cause of the contamination. The court called the state approval “arbitrary and capricious.”
