17/10/2024
Athen's Clean Water May Soon Be at risk!
A Proposal for a Giant Gravel Quarry Near Athens Wetlands Is Back
“Stop the quarry” signs started popping up in Jackson and Clarke counties in 2023. Credit: Lee Shearer
by Lee ShearerOctober 16, 2024
A giant mining company is pressing ahead with plans to create a granite quarry in a 900-acre tract just north of Athens in Jackson County.
The site off U.S. Highway 441, near its intersection with Georgia Highway 334 and Old Commerce Road, is about two miles west of the Sandy Creek Park wetlands, and part is adjacent to the North Oconee River, one of Athens-Clarke County’s drinking water sources.
Alabama-based Vulcan Materials Co. is asking Jackson County officials to approve a special use permit for the mine rather than a zoning change for the 900-acre tract, now mostly forest with some wetlands. Most of the land is classified by Jackson County as agricultural or conservation in character. The Jackson County Planning Commission is scheduled to take up the request at its next meeting Oct. 24.
The company—the nation’s largest producer of construction aggregates such as crushed stone and gravel—already operates another Jackson County quarry near Interstate 85, but wants another site to support booming development in Northeast Georgia. Vulcan is also seeking to carve out a quarry in nearby Franklin County, but that effort has been tied up in litigation. It’s offering to pay the Jackson County government $1.5 million plus a supply of gravel if the quarry proposal comes through. The quarry will also have to go through state permitting processes.
Word spread about Vulcan’s plans more than a year ago, after company officials sought out Jackson County officials outside public settings but did not file a formal request with the government. Soon “stop the quarry” signs proliferated in the area. Opponents raised concerns such as noise, traffic and the mine’s possible effects on the bordering North Oconee River, nearby wetlands—some in conservation status—and groundwater recharge.
A former chairman of Jackson County’s planning commission wrote that the planned quarry is atop the county’s largest groundwater recharge area. According to Vulcan’s geologists, that earlier assessment was wrong.
The mining company staged an elaborate public presentation in the Jackson County government’s Agricultural Facility Building near Jefferson last month, bringing some of the company’s engineers, environmental specialists, quarry superintendents and others to answer the public’s questions. Their storyboards and literature outlined Vulcan’s plans for the site, including measures the company proposed to address some of the issues opponents have raised. Vulcan said it would convert some of the site, near the North Oconee, into a conservation/recreation area. The actual quarry area would produce 800,000 tons of rock a year, but would occupy only a small part of the tract. Vulcan also proposed to build a new right turn-only entrance from the quarry onto U.S. Highway 441 to alleviate problems created by the 342 new daily trips the quarry would create, though Georgia highway regulations apparently won’t allow that.
“Every aspect of the proposed East Jackson County Quarry is designed to ensure a respectful, safe and environmentally responsible operation,” according to a website Vulcan has created outlining and promoting the project, vulcanjacksoncounty.com.
Randy Durham, who lives near the proposed quarry site, helped organize opposition to it last year and attended Vulcan’s open house. “I was impressed by their professionalism and their slickness, but I don’t trust their accuracy,” he said afterward.
The Northeast Georgia Regional Commission also had issues with the plan in an Oct. 3 “Developments of Regional Impact” report. Chemicals and debris from the quarry, seven miles above Athens’ main drinking water intake on the North Oconee, could affect water quality in the river, according to the report. The “heavy industrial areas” of the proposal “have the potential to create adverse effects to the North Oconee River,” according to the report.
That DRI report includes a December 2023 “to whom it may concern” letter by former Athens-Clarke County Manager Blaine Williams on behalf of the ACC government. That letter says the quarry could impact Athens’ drinking water, noting that outflow from the quarry will drain directly into the North Oconee, and points out that the North Oconee is now classified as “impaired,” with “growing issues with water quantity and quality.” The DRI report also said one element of the proposal just won’t fly—state regulations won’t permit the new right turn lane onto U.S. Highway 441 the plan calls for.
The complete DRI report, including the Athens-Clarke letter, is available online at negrdc.org.
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