ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 5, 1995 TAG: 9512050043
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
A Blacksburg-area stone quarry has applied to more than double its size and expand the blasting and rock-crushing hours regulated in its 18-year-old use permit.
The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission will hold a joint public hearing Monday on the request by Acco Stone Co. to amend its special-use permit. The hearing will be held on the third floor of the Montgomery County Courthouse. The board likely will not decide on the expansion until January, because the Planning Commission must make a recommendation first.
This marks the second time the quarry operators, Acco Stone, and the landowners, David and Ronnie Harman, have applied to expand operations since 1978. That year, after nearly 18 months of controversy, the board OK'd an initial expansion to 90 acres.
Acco Stone is seeking the revision to help supply materials for evening paving operations by the Virginia Department of Transportation, according to a Nov. 14 letter from Robert C. Bolles with Draper Aden Associates. The quarry crushes rock to make sand that is used in an on-site asphalt plant owned by Adams Construction Co., Bolles wrote.
The last time an Acco Stone expansion came up, in July 1989, quarry neighbors, including residents of the historic Yellow Sulphur Springs resort, gathered 79 names on a petition opposing the change. Yet the Montgomery supervisors voted 4-2 to allow Acco to blast and dig 50 feet below the level of existing streams. Three of the seven current supervisors were on the board in 1989, and all voted for the last change.
This time, Acco Stone, at 677 Jennelle Road, is asking to more than double the size of the quarry to the south and east, from 90 acres to 190 acres. The new eastern boundary of the quarry would be the right of way for the proposed "smart" highway, which is planned to run 5.8 miles from southern Blacksburg to Interstate 81 to speed travel between Virginia Tech and Roanoke.
The 1978 permit limits all quarry operations to between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The new application asks the Board of Supervisors to add to that by allowing crushing operations in the quarry's sand plant to begin at 6 a.m. and end at noon Monday through Saturday, from April 1 to Dec. 1. It also asks for 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. hours on Saturdays for another part of the operation, the "secondary crush plant," for the same months.
In addition, the request asks that blasting hours be changed to 9 to 11 a.m. and 1 to 4 p.m. from the current noon to 3 p.m. limit. That will add two hours but will not increase the volume of blasting, according to Bolles, who is acting as an agent for the Harmans.
The 90-acre quarry sits on 404 acres the Harmans own between Yellow Sulphur and Jennelle roads on the west and north and Norfolk Southern railway to the south. David Harman also is listed as a co-owner on an adjoining 61 acres, county real-estate records show.
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. View of the Acco Stone Co. quarry, seenby CNBfrom Yellow Sulphur Road, shows the existing operation to the left
and the edge of the expansion
area to the right. The quarry sits on 404 acres between Yellow
Sulphur and
Jennelle roads. color. Graphic: Map. color.