I work off Duraleigh and saw some signs come up in the middle of December advertising this website: http://www.blockthequarry.org/. After the first week of being up, the signs were gone for the second week. Then they were back up after being gone for a week.

Background information from the website:

Quote :

"A developer is petitioning the Raleigh City Council to rezone 169 acres of land adjacent to Umstead State Park from Residential Zoning to Industrial Zoning, so that the land can be sold to Hanson Aggregates for the purpose of expanding the mining operations at the Hanson Crabtree Quarry. This land is within 200 feet of Umstead State Park, directly across Ebenezer Church Road and bordering a long section of Crabtree Creek. "

Some reasons to block the new quarry, they believe that:

Quote :

"* Umstead State Park must be preserved and protected. * This land adjacent to the park should remain Residentially Zoned, as it has been since 1974, and should not be rezoned for Industrial uses. * The RALEIGH 2030 Comprehensive Land Plan, completed only 12 months ago, is correct in calling for this area to continue to be Residentially Zoned until 2030. The exact purpose of this Comprehensive Plan document is to protect our citizens from spot rezoning, which is exactly what Petition Z-2-11 attempts to do. * The Raleigh City Council should protect city residents by not allowing multi-national companies (in this case, the parent company of Hanson Aggregates is Heidelberg Cement) to profit at the expense of its citizens and the environment."

Some things that I would like to point out are:
1. Umstead isn't being touched. It's still preserved and protected. I don't know why that first statement is there.
2. The past zoning of land shouldn't decide its future zoning.
3. A valid point.
4. The Raleigh City Council should protect it's residents but also do what's best for Raleigh. I understand if Raleigh sees the tax money and jobs created from this quarry weigh in more than leaving it zoned residential. Also, there are MANY multi-national companies in the area and that's why this area is doing so good relative to the rest of the state/country.

They list other impacts that I will address in the next post.

1/18/2011 3:37:40 PM

"I am a frequent visitor to Umstead Park. On November 1, 2010, while walking near the park, I noticed the above sign at the Crabtree Creek bridge on Ebenezer Church Road. I have never seen a sign like this before. It makes me wonder if there are many foundation cracks and structural cracks in this area. Could these cracks be the result of blasting and rock crushing in the quarry?" (Raleigh

This line of garbage is subtitling a picture of a sign for "The Wall Doctor, ceiling and wall repair." I love it when people do this. Could it be the result of.... It could be, and it very well could not fucking be. How bout doing some actual research instead of conjecturing out of your ass?

1/18/2011 3:44:31 PM

i know that if i lived over there in that subdivision (where i have several friends living) i would be fucking pissed off. especially with the way the land zoning is supposedly for residential for another 20 years.

1/18/2011 3:53:54 PM

Quote :

"* Excessive noise and dust from large machinery and blasting, as well as crushing of rock and repeated explosions * Spewing of rock particulates and dust into the air we breathe * Loss of natural land contour * Geomorphic effects * Shifting of bedrock with yet undetermined future consequences * Disturbance of animal habitats/biota, forcing animals into ever cramped spaces or moving them into populated areas * Explosions strong enough to mimic earthquakes and strong enough to cause foundation and wall cracking * Storage of fuel, lubricants, and chemicals close to our water supply"

1. Noise from will be a temporary issue. Once they get 40 feet in the ground you wont be able to hear them. Rock crushing doesn't make that much noise. The explosions are not loud in the same sense that machinery is and it's not constant. From my office, we hear the explosions 3-4 times a week, only between 10 and 3, and never on the weekend. The only way you'll hear it is if you're retired or work at home.

2. Water is added when rock is being crushed to minimize dust. I will notice a dust cloud at the existing quarry only when if they aren't adding enough water and there is no wind. Happens only a few times a month.

3. The land is losing contour every time it rains or the wind blows. This is just an accelerated version of it. Not a big deal to me.

4. What geomorphic effects?

5. Undetermined consequences? Then why are you worried about it.

6. A valid point.

7. Your foundation is not going to crack from blasting unless you are really close to it. The quarry has a set of blasting criterion set up by the US Bureau of Mines. If they don't follow it, they could be sued for damages caused to adjacent structures. It lays out Peak Particle velocities, distances, and whether or not the blasting will damage dry-wall or plaster.

8. A valid point but the same could be said about home owners. Residents could install USTs on their property which could eventually leak into the ground. Residents could spray pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, etc on their land which would eventually reach the groundwater.

And for the biggest crock of shit:

Quote :

""My house was built in the mid 60’s in an upscale development. I noticed that one corner of my house began to crack in the mortar and the crack continued up the side of the house. Then I noticed that some of my doors did not shut, and that some of my windows became hard to open. It looked like the house was sinking on that corner. An engineering report confirmed my conclusion in the early 1980’s. The first fix involved pouring concrete to stabilize the foundation . . . The brick process had to be repeated since there was more settling to follow. When the quarry began a new section, there was more intensity. Glasses frequently fell from shelves and my wife and I took all the dishes from the sideboard since breakage occurred so often. Before I sold my house I had an engineer prepare a report stating that my house was structurally sound. I took a 25% loss in addition to the costs of repairs." (Homeowner affected by the Rockydale Quarries in Roanoke, VA) "

This person described a textbook case of differential settlement and not effects of blasting. They didn't even mention blasting or quarries.

1/18/2011 3:54:40 PM

Quote :

"i know that if i lived over there in that subdivision (where i have several friends living) i would be fucking pissed off. especially with the way the land zoning is supposedly for residential for another 20 years."

I totally agree. If you want to stop the quarry because it was zoned as residential prior to moving there, and was changed to industrial after you got there, fight it.

The problem is that this website is construing facts or using outright lies. It might cost them the movement if all their followers do is read that and show up to the city meeting. The witness (engineer) hired by the quarry is going to crush them.

[Edited on January 18, 2011 at 3:58 PM. Reason : -]

1/18/2011 3:57:11 PM

Quote :

"1. Umstead isn't being touched. It's still preserved and protected. I don't know why that first statement is there. "

That's a good question, and it reminds me of a recent assigned reading I had for a class about different kinds of organizational leaders.

One example of a transformational leader was this guy who took over as the head of one of the largest land preservation groups in the US. He looked at their old model of buying up lots of plots of land and fencing them off as preserved land or turning them into parks and asked, is this working?

He helped them switch over this non-profits business model completely. He got them started with a more scientific approach by looking at the various animal and plants, especially the sensitive ones, and measuring their numbers and noticed many of them were still declining. So they looked at ways to change things up to better preserve those species. They realized that it didn't matter if they put a fence around an area, all the area around it has a huge impact on the quality of animal and plant life in the fenced off area. So their new model became buy less, but bigger plots of land. And to bring in economic development people, something their organization never had before, and encouraging farms, residential development, and or lower impact development rather than retail and other high impact development in the areas around their lands.

So instead of opposing all development they started actively engaging in making the development as best as possible realizing that was the only way to preserve the quality of their lands when the environment is so interconnected, because just putting up a fence and not worrying about adjacent lands had completely failed to protect their preserved lands and parks.

I'm not going to weigh in on the overall proposal just yet, because I don't know enough about it, but that first point might actually have some validity.

1/18/2011 3:58:19 PM

^If they developed it for residential or industrial, what difference does it make? You're still going to affect local wildlife/plants/etc (probably minimal though). I'm just saying that isn't a good point to stand on. They should say "Umstead State Park must not be affected as much as what you propose".

1/18/2011 4:02:01 PM

The office where I work is within half-a-mile of a Martin Marietta quarry in Greensboro. There's three things I have to say about it:

-The water at the office is 10x harder than anything I've encountered; if I rinse-out a glass and let it air dry, it will be covered in a bitter white residue.
-Surrounding the quarry is a barrier of trees between 100-500 feet thick. The barrier looks like a typical wooded area from the outside, except it's completely littered with trash and debris, and many of the trees are dead. Surrounding the barrier is a dilapidated chain-link fence and lots of pipe and power-line markers. It's just ugly as hell.
-No "blasting" or really loud sounds. Just a constant drone of diesel machinery, only audible if you're driving right past the quarry.

Other than that I don't really have a problem with it. I'd hate to live near it though.

1/18/2011 4:32:48 PM

i hated working near that quarry, my car was dirty as shit every day. I was in leesville industrial park and could hear and feel the blasting, wasn't a big deal though.

1/18/2011 4:46:12 PM