It’s a funny thing about the Vulcan site plan for SJRQ. It’s not very detailed. It’s got some pits, some berms, future plant site. The ‘conservation area’. Not much else. Vulcan claims that’s it. They say ‘2/3 of the project will remain agricultural’.
Planning Commisioner Page asked if Vulcan could clarify the use of the unaccounted for land. Vulcan said they would work on it. We have seen the updated letter of intent and they haven’t clarified the use of that land or offered to preserve the land with a binding agreement.
Why?
If you look at google maps of various rock quarries , they all look pretty much alike. The first thing you notice is that they take up almost every inch of available space.
The next thing to notice is the massive scale of the quarry and the massive scale of rock storage. After the initial blasting the rock is moved to the plant where it is crushed and recrushed into various type of aggregate product. The Rock piles are hundreds of feet high and and wide and the conveyer belts can be several hundred feet long. Crushing operations and stockpiles can take up as much room or more than the pits.
The small ant like things are Dump trucks.
The next thing to notice around quarries are the complementary businesses. Where there is a rock quarry you will almost always find asphalt and concrete companies.
The North Jackson Quarry
At Vulcan quarries you will find CW Mathews Construction and ER Snell Contractors. CW Mathews run Asphalt Plants, ER Snell road construction and asphalt.
Vulcan claims that two thirds of the site will be agricultural but that is not the nature of quarries. After the pit is built there will be no other use for the land and they will be back arguing that there is no choice but to expand the quarry and put in asphalt and concrete plants.
