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Almost 300 citizens turned out Thursday night to tell lawyers for the city of Maryville what it’s like to live around a rock quarry and of their dealings with Vulcan Materials Co.

The vast majority of the comments were negative.

Vulcan operates the quarry between Duncan and Montvale roads. Over the years, the quarry machinery has burrowed more than 350 feet deep, while the surrounding land, vacant when Vulcan rented it in 1947, is now circled by residential areas.

Those residential neighbors gave almost unanimous testimony to the ill effects their quality of life, homes and property have suffered due to the Vulcan operation.

One after another, they testified. One woman said blasts from the quarry shook nails from the wallboard and the studs. Many showed slides of cracks that have developed in the walls of their homes, brick houses, concrete basements, driveways and in-ground swimming pools.

Kitt Tisdale, who lives on Court Street, said the first word her daughter uttered was “truck,” because of the noise from the trucks that often woke her from naps. She said that when the girl played outside on the front porch she would “look like a coal miner” from the dust generated by the quarry.

Karen Smuckler was one of the founders of Citizens Against Expansion of Open Pit Mining in Maryville in 1987 when the group organized to fight Vulcan’s plans to expand its mining operation. She said that “over 20 years ago Vulcan Materials came to city council and said they had only 20 years left in the pit. They said they needed to go to the west.”

Six hundred people came out to relate their problems with the quarry at that time, problems that still exist today, she said.

They objected to dust, truck traffic, noise of machinery and blasts, berms that block the view, decreases in property values, vibrations and blasts and sinkholes that have developed.

Vulcan contends it has grandfathered rights to mine its entire property, but the city contends the company has never mined the property to the west, closer to the middle of the property toward Montvale Road, and can’t expand in that direction.

Vulcan has sued the city over the issue. In the meantime, the company has moved the quarry entrance and had Harrison APAC move its asphalt plant from near Court Street (which becomes Duncan Road in the county) at a cost of $400,000. Vulcan now plans to mine that property, which is closer to residential housing.

One man asked the city what they have gained for the $180,000 in taxpayer monies it has spent on the lawsuit so far.

Karl Miller, who lives in Briarcliff Subdivision off Montvale Road, said he is in support of a compromise. He said his wife, Sherry, was a Lambert, who sold Vulcan the property, and that he is in favor of Vulcan, Harrison and the property rights of the quarry.

He said he feels the quarry needs to move more toward the middle of the property.
After the people had spoken, Maryville City Manager Greg McClain gave the city’s response.

He said Vulcan sued the city and that “when you are sued, you have no choice but to spend money. We’re not the aggressor, we’re the defendants.”

McClain said the piece of ground the company wants to mine, which is zoned environmental conservation, would “truly give them decades, and decades and decades and decades of quarrying, which would bring them millions and millions of dollars out of that earth. They never changed their position, not once. They didn’t give us anything.”

He said what would be reasonable for Maryville would be for Vulcan to make concessions.

That would include restoring Duncan Branch, which one woman said once had fish, snakes and frogs, but is now an environmental disaster. McClain said

“That creek is really not a creek,” McClain said. “It’s a ditch. They put water in when they want to. The watershed that went to the quarry now goes to the quarry pit.”
He also said Vulcan says their blasting is legal, but it is affecting the neighbors negatively.

He said as far as dust is concerned, the company should measure it, repair sinkholes it causes, set decibel levels and measure the noise. He suggested that Vulcan monitor the levels and post the results on the internet.

“The city council is very reasonable. The city council is willing to work to resolve the lawsuit for the benefit of Vulcan, the citizens and everyone. Vulcan has you all believing that it’s our city council that is the problem. Vulcan will truly outspend us. They’ll out-saturate the media outlets. They will wear us down. This council can sustain that,” McClain said.