GRAYTOWN, Ohio — A standing-room-only crowd of about 250 packed tiny Graytown Elementary School’s gymnasium Monday night to hear from a newly formed citizens’ group about a controversial quarry reclamation project planned for Ottawa County’s Benton Township.

Many of the residents expressed outrage as Citizens for Safe Water and a Healthy Environment, a grassroots organization formed in response to the project, said during the 90-minute meeting it believes private water wells could become polluted or pumped dry if the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency allows the project planned for the Rocky Ridge Quarry to proceed.

The group also warned of potential impacts to Ottawa County’s world-class wetlands along the western Lake Erie shoreline, including Magee Marsh and the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.

The city of Toledo is connected to the project. It has hired Custom Ecology of Ohio Inc. of Mableton, Ga., a firm associated with Rocky Ridge partners, to haul away spent lime from Toledo’s Collins Park Water Treatment Plant at a cost of $4 million a year to make room for improvements.

Spent lime is a byproduct of the plant’s water-treatment process.

“It’s filtering things out of the water they don’t want Toledo residents to drink,” Richard Loth, citizens group spokesman, said. “Why would anybody consider dumping this material into our groundwater?”

Spent lime, he said, can contain arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, selenium, and zinc in levels that far exceed national drinking water standards.

Project developer Rocky Ridge Development LLC of Sylvania was not represented at the meeting.

Rocky Ridge Development has applied for a permit to fill up the quarry with a blend of spent lime and native soil. It has expressed an interest in using silt from Maumee River dredgings in place of native soil at some point in the future.

Rocky Ridge Development and its project designers, Hull & Associates Inc. of Toledo, have said there will be no impact on groundwater.

The gathering was the first of what the citizens’ group hopes to be a series of meetings for the greater Ottawa County community at large.

State Sen. Randy Gardner (R., Bowling Green), state Rep. Steve Arndt (R., Port Clinton), and Ottawa County Prosecutor Mark Mulligan were among public officials in attendance.

The two legislators said the Ohio EPA owes residents answers, while Mr. Mulligan said he plans to file a municipal court action against Rocky Ridge next week on grounds that its proposed surface application of spent lime is a violation of agricultural zoning.

“Our belief is it is not being carried out with an agricultural function,” Mr. Mulligan said. “It’s disposal of a waste product. That will be our first plan of attack.”

Also in attendance were Ottawa County’s three commissioners; Chuck Campbell, Toledo commissioner of plant operations; and Andy McClure, Collins Park Water Treatment Plant manager. Neither were speakers, but answered questions from the audience.

Toledo won’t support the project unless the Ohio EPA determines it’s safe, Mr. Campbell said.

“Our product produced by the water plant is not a hazardous waste,” Mr. McClure said.

Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com, 419-724-6079, or via Twitter @ecowriterohio.

First Published October 4, 2016, 4:00 a.m.