The Bucks County concrete company which has already won the right to mine 163 acres in New Hanover Township wants to expand that area by 82 acres.

                Two divisions of The Silvi Group Companies, based in Fairless Hills, have submitted an application to the municipality requesting permission to operate a quarry north of Hoffmansville Road.

                Gibraltar Rock, Inc. and Sahara Sand, Inc. have applied for a hearing before the township's zoning hearing board. The hearing is scheduled for Thursday, March 5 at 6:30 p.m. at the municipal building, located at 2943 North Charlotte Street, Gilbertsville.

                The applicants seek a special exception to the municipality's zoning use regulation for the vacant property, according to township Manager Kevin Tobias.  The application lists two parcels in the township's HI - Heavy Industrial Zoning District. One, at 2180 Colflesh Road, covers 7.31 acres.

                Gibraltar Rock, Inc. purchased the other parcel, covering 18.1 acres near the northwest corner of Church Road and Hoffmansville Road and the southwest corner of Church Road and Colflesh Road, for $800,000 from the Tower Trust, according to information posted on Montgomery County property records.

                Paul Bauer, New Hanover's solicitor, and Robert Brant, a Trappe attorney, will represent the township, according to Tobias.

                The manager said any municipal resident may be represented by an attorney or him or herself.

                Celeste Bish, an officer with Paradise Watchdogs/Ban the Quarry, a non-profit environmental preservation community group, expressed concern that the 18-acre property intended for mining is part of the Good Oil contamination.  "That could create a lot of problems," she said.

                According to Bish, high levels of several contaminants remain in many of the monitoring wells on the Good Oil property in various locations.  She said some of those wells on located on property owned by Gibraltar Rock, Inc. 

                Officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation discovered well water contamination above that exceed the safe drinking standards in the homes in the 300 block of Layfield Road and the 2000 block of Hoffmansville Road.  In the same area they also discovered six wells with trace amounts of toxins, but within safe drinking standards.

                An investigation in the area began in 2008 following a 2007 oil spill at the Good Oil property, formerly Swann Oil, in the 200 block of Layfield Road.

                The property served as a bulk oil storage facility, according to Susan Kennedy, a geologist with DEP. She said previously that the site hosted multiple tanks ranging from 10,000 to 2 million gallons.

                The current application is the fourth submitted by The Silvi Group since 2001, according to Bish.

                Its initial application to quarry 163 acres – between Church Road, Route 663 and Route 73 – was approved by the zoning hearing board in June of 2007 after 67 hearings.