Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 4, 1994 TAG: 9408040090
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
Scruggs has lived his entire life on the Blackwater River, which flows into Smith Mountain Lake. He and several others spoke out against the sandman Wednesday night.
Ronnie Wray is the sandman. Wray, who owns the Rocky Mount Ready Mix concrete company, is seeking a permit from the state Water Control Board to dredge sand at a site downstream from the Brooks Mill Bridge on Virginia 834. Wray plans to sell the sand to contractors and others.
Another controversial sand mining business used the same site for three years before ceasing operation in 1992.
The Franklin County Board of Supervisors granted a special-use permit to Milton Blankenship in 1989. The board tied the initial permit to the site and not to the applicant, so Wray is allowed to use it.
The Water Control Board and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also issued permits for Blankenship to dredge there.
Wray attended Wednesday's hearing but did not speak. He declined to answer questions afterward.
``Talk to [the state],'' he said. ``They've got all the facts.''
Scruggs, who owns the Ponderosa Campground near the proposed mining operation, said the first mining operation had adverse effects on the lake, including: discoloration of water; the relocation of fish; build-up of silt downstream; and noise.
``Have you ever heard a good ol' hydraulic engine?'' Scruggs asked Wendell Butler, chairman of the Water Control Board. ``It sounds like this: hhhhNNNNNN! hhhhNNNNNN! And it does that all day.''
Bill Leary, vice chairman of the Smith Mountain Lake Policy Advisory Board, spent the past two weeks researching Wray's request. And although the Policy Advisory Board did not take a position on the issue, Leary clearly did.
``It has no business here,'' he said. ``It is impossible to mitigate a problem in a 20,000-acre lake. Once it's there, it's there.''
Leary, a retired insurance fraud investigator, said he talked to residents on the lake about the first dredging business and found it affected people as far as seven miles from the site.
Game fish left the area of the lake near the mining operation, water discoloration occurred, and silt was carried to other sections on the lake, he said.
However, Tom Leedom, a biologist with the Corps of Engineers, said there is no evidence that sand mining has any more effect on a lake or river than Mother Nature.
Leedom reviewed the Blankenship permit in 1989 and has studied the site.
Silvia Gazzera of the state Department of Environmental Quality said Wray will be required to monitor the level of suspended material in water discharged back into the river.
The Water Control Board will make a decision on Wray's request on Sept.19. The Corps of Engineers then will vote on the permit if the state board approves it.
by CNB