VERONA – The 500-foot expanded buffer for Augusta County quarries appears to be dead.
The ordinance first came before the Augusta County Board of Supervisors earlier this month. Members of the local quarry industry spoke against the ordinance at the meeting, many of them only learning about the ordinance the day before. Residents expressed frustration to The News Leader after it wasn’t passed, concerned more quarry fights lay ahead of them with the Board of Zoning Appeals.
The follow-up meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, bringing the residents and quarry operators together in the Government Center. After nearly three hours of discussion, the issue was hammered down from a general 500-foot buffer around all quarries in agriculture-zoned areas into a potential rearrangement of use boundaries for one quarry, D.M. Conner.
Julia Hensley, a planner with the county, coordinated the meeting. After discussion ended, she agreed to arrange another meeting to settle the individual issue and complimented the policy discussion.
“In my position, I have seen people get this close to each other and scream in each other’s faces,” said Hensley, holding her fingers about six inches apart. “What happened here, with this situation, has been some of the best displays of public discourse. Some people are passionate, and it’s okay to be passionate about this, but everybody on both sides has been able to come to the table and sit down and listen to each other. I really commend everybody for coming tonight.”
Hensley also said county employees would reach out to industry ahead of any future ordinances.
What do the residents want?
The residents present on Wednesday were not concerned with five of the six quarries operating in the county. Each present were neighbors of D.M. Conner in Stuarts Draft.
“We’re trying to get this 500-foot buffer for these two houses. Two houses, that’s all we want,” said John Golladay, who lives next to D.M. Conner’s quarry. “That way, when they finish doing all them acres over there, they won’t come back and try this again on us then. It’s going to happen. As soon as they run out of dirt and run out of rock, they’re going to come for that land. There’s no if ands or buts about it. We’re trying to safeguard us from that happening.”
Golladay referred to a planned expansion of the quarry into property northeast of Oak Lane which was rejected by the Board of Zoning Appeals in 2021. Currently, an approved part of the D.M. Conner quarry is about 300 feet from the two homes to the south, in the Oak Lane and Gerties Lane bend, including Golladay’s.
Similar to the previous meeting, residents were concerned with their children’s safety around the cliffs, property values around a quarry, and frustration with having to fight the same battle against the quarry’s expansion applications repeatedly.
“If you’ve got a hay field or a cow field, go to 200 feet” of buffer, said Derek Hutchinson, another area resident. “We don’t care. What we are worried about is residences. I know I, personally, am willing to go as far as if there’s a piece of property where a home is more than 500 feet from the line, go to 200 feet. Our concern is 500 feet from the home.”
Doug Wolfe, Augusta County’s Director of Community Development, ruled out the home measurement, citing previous legal problems the county dealt with when it had this type of rule in place for other industries.
What do the quarry operators want?
The quarry operators opposed a hard rule expanding the buffer zone to 500 feet, repeating many of the arguments heard in the previous supervisors meeting. If the buffer was changed, nearly all quarries would need project revisions, eliminating a portion of what is available to mine as the operations are already ongoing.
The financial implications of these revisions are the main concern, according to Rob Lanham with the Virginia Transportation Construction Alliance, an advocacy group for “for contractors, aggregate producers, engineers, suppliers and service providers who design, build and maintain Virginia’s transportation network.”
“It’s about 180,000 tons of material for every acre at 50-foot depth,” said Lanham. “It’s impactful for a mining operation that has purchased or acquired or secured property with the expectation that they’ve got x number of tons that they can extract from that property.”
Quarry operators advocated for the current system, where the Augusta County Board of Zoning Appeals could set higher buffers over 200 feet on individual operations, rather than a blanket expanded buffer ordinance.
A cliffhanger on Oak Lane
The ordinance was not concerned about reclamation, but the meeting turned toward the topic. Several area residents raised concerns about D.M. Conner’s operation along Oak Lane, with Carol Mill-Meads asking for her photos to be placed on the display.
Benny Conner, co-owner of DM Conner, explained the exposed ground was still under an active permit. After the active permit expires, the cliff must be graded to a two-to-one slope. He stood up, approached the screen, and pointed toward the center of the photo. A two-to-one slope was visible further down the cliff drop off on the photo to the right, taken earlier this year.
“That corner you see, to the left, there’s a few rocks back up in there,” Conner said. “We’ve been in there the last couple of days to get those out. That ridge to the right there, we’ll eventually –“
“I thought y’all weren’t working back there. You just said a minute ago that you weren’t –“ interjected one resident.
“Let him talk, let him talk,” said Supervisor Carolyn Bragg.
“The ridge to the right, we’ll eventually two-to-one slope back there,” Conner said.
Conner also agreed to speak to the neighbors in a follow-up meeting to establishing a better barrier between the road and the cliff.
The topsoil also has to be put back, according to Lanham.
“Under the reclamation permit, the operations are required to keep an amount of topsoil and store it to be able to reclaim the property,” said Lanham. “You cannot export it off site. You can’t sell it.”
Conner agreed, saying he has a “pile” of topsoil on site.
An individual solution overtakes the broad brush
Instead of putting a broad rule in place, discussions turned to changing the boarders of D.M. Conner’s quarry, getting it further away from the two homes. Conner and co-owner Debbie Henderson were agreeable to submitting a new special use permit, withdrawing the part of the quarry further away from the two homes, while allowing them to expand into the property that was previously denied.
Although another meeting between residents and D.M. Conner remains, and the Conners would need to submit a new special use permit application, the two present Augusta County supervisors, Carolyn Bragg and Michael Shull, both thought about withdrawing the ordinance entirely.
This won’t happen, as the motion to table the ordinance in the previous meeting scheduled another public hearing for the ordinance in March. Whether the supervisors vote for or against the ordinance remains to be seen.
Clara Johnston, office manager of Shenandoah Stone, was optimistic the ordinance was now dead, telling The News Leader, “Hopefully what was an ordinance change, doesn’t need to be changed again. It can be resolved as an individual issue. That’s what it sounded like tonight, to me.”
Chuck Barker, president of Acre Sand and Stone, was more cautious; “I don’t rest until I know for sure. I can’t say the same thing, but I think it is certainly sidetracked for now. The Conners need to work through what they can on the individual issues there, but I think the biggest thing tonight is communication.”
Lyra Bordelon (she/her) is the public transparency and justice reporter at The News Leader. Do you have a story tip or feedback? It’s welcome through email to lbordelon@gannett.com. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com.
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This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Quarry ordinance upended with potential deal between D.M. Conner and residents
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