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Article published Feb 16, 2008 Mayor: Not ‘wasting’ money in Vulcan suit
By Mark Boxley of The Daily Times Staff
The legal squabble between Vulcan Materials Inc. and the city of Maryville was recently taken to the court of public opinion by a letter from the company to about 4,000 city households.
The letter accused city leaders of spending “hundreds of thousands” of taxpayer dollars to fight Vulcan in court over the company’s future quarrying plans — the city says Vulcan is “expanding” the quarry, while company officials argue it is simply planning to quarry property it has leased between Duncan and Montvale roads for that reason.
Friday, Maryville Mayor Joe Swann replied to the Vulcan letter in a release given to The Daily Times.
“This is a response to the charge that the city of Maryville is ‘wasting’ money in its lawsuit to prevent the expansion of the quarry owned by Vulcan Materials Inc.,” Swann wrote in the letter. “It is the job of the city to enforce its zoning laws and to protect citizens from operations that diminish the quiet enjoyment of their homes and property.”
The basic conflict between the two boils down to the status of Vulcan’s property — formerly owned by Sen. J.T. Trotter, and currently owned by his heirs and leased to the company. Zoning changes since 1947 when Vulcan first leased the property, currently do not allow a quarry operation on the property. The company argues that the entirety of the property leased for the quarry should be grandfathered into the law; the city argues that only part of the property operating as a quarry when the zoning laws changed should be grandfathered.
The Maryville City Council passed an ordinance on first reading in January which declares “that quarry operations within the city of Maryville constitute a nuisance because of the emission of dust, sound and vibration and the creation of dangerous excavation areas.”
The ordinance will be up for a second reading during a city council meeting later this year.
The issue became the subject of a lawsuit between Vulcan and the city of Maryville in 2004, but since then the two parties have been working toward a resolution.
According to the letter from Vulcan to the public, “unfortunately, negotiations have broken down again, and it appears that our final resort is continued litigation to protect our property rights.”
In his letter Friday, Swann — who said during a telephone interview he was speaking as the mayor, but not on behalf of the Maryville City Council — accused Vulcan of trying to get around the transparency of the rezoning process by taking the issue to court.
“Instead of requesting a zoning change to allow expansion of the quarry, Vulcan sued the city of Maryville in an attempt to circumvent long-standing zoning regulations that have prevented the quarry from extending its operations,” Swann wrote. “A zoning hearing would allow citizen input and give Vulcan an opportunity to state their case for an expansion.”
Swann went on to say that he felt Vulcan was trying to strong-arm the city into allowing the company to go forward with its plans through the lawsuit.
“Corporations with extensive legal and public relations resources can exert a lot of pressure on citizens and governments to get what they want when other avenues of due process look less promising,” he wrote.
Swann called Vulcan’s quarry operations a nuisance — one that he felt would only get worse if the company were to go ahead and quarry more of the property.
“The proposed expansion could make a bad situation of dust, noise, blasting, blue line stream destruction and geological destabilization in neighborhoods around the quarry a far worse nuisance than they are today and would allow them to continue for a much longer time,” he wrote.
As it stands, in the letter from Vulcan — which was signed by Vulcan Midsouth Division President Stanley G. Bass and Midsouth Manager Carl Van Hoozier Jr. — the company indicated it would continue to operate at the current site, even if it loses the lawsuit, for “many decades to come.”Duncan Branch
In his letter, Swann sums up the city’s position on Vulcan’s treatment of Duncan Branch. The blue line stream — one that runs continuously all or most of the year — “has become Vulcan’s ditch instead of the free-flowing stream that watered stock on the Duncan’s farm and ran through the College Woods.”
Swann wrote that the stream no longer runs freely, and that Vulcan allows the streambed — which runs through the Vulcan site — “to run completely dry for long periods of time, killing almost all aquatic life that lives in the stream...
“Vulcan acts as if they are doing us a favor by putting water back into the creek,” Swann continues. “If riparian water rights are not sacred then what is? Are these the actions of a responsible corporate citizen or is this indicative of a general attitude toward public resources?”
Speaking by phone Friday, Swann explained that the stance in his statement is one Maryville has taken all along. “This is the stance the city has taken through me,” he said.
Swann said he could not discuss the negotiations that have been ongoing, but that after Vulcan’s letter to the public he felt it was time to make sure the citizens of the city know where the government stands.
“All I can say is we’ve had a great deal of public support in the past ... and I think that public support is still there,” he said.Vulcan statement
Responding to Swann’s letter Friday, Bass also released a statement. “Operating as a good corporate citizen and a steward of the environment are core values of Vulcan Materials Company,” he wrote. “We have served the Maryville community for over 60 years and have worked diligently to be a good neighbor. We believe the rights of people are very important and we are convinced that the grandfathered property rights of the Trotter Family and Vulcan are important to defend.
“We stand behind our message to the citizens of Maryville, and despite Mayor Swann’s comments, we remain hopeful that we can work together to resolve our dispute.”