ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 13, 1995 TAG: 9512130021
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
One person's widened interstate and new roads are another person's deeper, bigger neighborhood quarry.
Demand for asphalt and rock spurred by Interstate 81 widening and other projects has led to a request to double in size and expand hours at the Acco Stone Co. quarry outside Blacksburg, company representatives said Monday.
But some residents of Jennelle and Yellow Sulphur roads, who live with the noise, blasting and dust of the 32-year-old quarry, say enough is enough. They want the quarry to remain the same size and retain the same hours at the very least.
The issue came up for a public hearing Monday before the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors, along with a separate proposal for a 98-home subdivision on 205 acres off Rock Road near Radford. The board won't vote on the matters until next year.
Following the hearing, the Montgomery County Planning Commission postponed making a recommendation on the quarry until 7 p.m. Dec. 20. It did recommend approval of the Rock Road subdivision rezoning by a 7-2 vote but advised the Board of Supervisors to delay final approval until water-service issues are finalized.
On the quarry, Quintin Burch, for one, said he'd had three windows shattered during the day since moving to Yellow Sulphur Road in 1986, presumably by blasting. He said his well went bad after the quarry gained permission in 1989 to excavate 50 feet deeper. He now hauls in drinking water for his family.
Charlotte Worsham, who owns a piece of the old Yellow Sulphur Springs resort property with her husband, Gibson, said she was concerned about the extent of the expansion, from 90 acres to 190 acres under the proposal. She urged the board to remember that the quarry is in an agricultural area.
Robert Bolles, an engineer working for Acco Stone, said the quarry will soon reach the limits of its permitted area. Expanding into the new section will further insulate adjacent landowners from noise, while Saturday hours for rock-crushing and sand-grinding equipment will help the quarry accommodate nighttime paving operations by the Virginia Department of Transportation.
Kendall Clay, a lawyer representing Acco, said the quarry lacks sufficient storage to build up enough crushed rock for use in an on-site asphalt plant that supplies nighttime paving operations on U.S. 460 and Interstate 81. The asphalt plant is owned by Adams Construction Co. and is exempt from county land-use regulations because it predates them.
Clay said a 1978 expansion of the quarry from 30 to 90 acres supplied sufficient rock for the past 17 years and he expected this proposed expansion to supply enough stone for at least a comparable period. He said the expansion will benefit the community, not just Acco Stone and the landowners, David and Ronnie Harman of Lynchburg.
"This is a situation where each of us is a user of the product produced," he said.
According to VDOT resident engineer Dan Brugh, the state will buy 70,000 of the 160,000 tons of stone used in road projects in Montgomery, Pulaski and Giles counties this year. Of the 160,000 tons, 85,000 tons are used in new construction and the balance in maintenance. The construction number is expected to increase as the I-81 widening and construction of the planned Blacksburg-Christiansburg bypass connector and the proposed "smart" highway get under way in the late 1990s, Brugh said.
On the Radford-area subdivision, only two people spoke at the public hearing. Neighbor Gregory Francisco said he was 100 percent behind the project, proposed by landowners Ben Harris for 195 acres and Fred Franklin for 10 acres. But another nearby landowner, Bert Weschke, said he was concerned about the project's potential impact on the environment and on the character of the rural area, on how septic systems would affect nearby wells and on an Indian archaeological site he said is on one of the three properties involved.
Though the initial design concept called for up to 150 homes on 205 acres, that was scaled back to a maximum of 98 lots after further study of the steep topography, said Michael Gay, an engineer for the developers.
LENGTH: Medium: 76 linesby CNB