Judge issues an injunction against RDU quarry, but it won’t slow down Wake Stone
Wake Stone Corp. can move ahead with plans to mine wooded land owned by Raleigh-Durham International Airport, but it can’t sell any rock from the property until the summer of 2022, or until the legal fight over the quarry has ended, according to a judge’s ruling late Thursday.
Wake County Superior Court Judge Graham Shirley said he was partly agreeing to a request from opponents of the quarry that mining not occur while they appeal Shirley’s ruling from last fall that RDU acted legally when it signed a mineral lease with Wake Stone.
But Thursday’s decision doesn’t slow Wake Stone down, because the company doesn’t anticipate being ready to begin mining stone from the property until late summer 2022 anyway.
In the meantime, Wake Stone is seeking mining and environmental permits, which company president and CEO Sam Bratton says it expects to have by late summer or early fall. The company would then need to clear trees and remove dirt and unmarketable rock and build a bridge over Crabtree Creek to carry stone to its existing quarry site off North Harrison Avenue, where it would be crushed, cleaned and loaded on to trucks.
Shirley’s order specifically allows all of the those activities to take place while the appeals process plays out, once the company has its permits.
“We’re pleased with his decision,” Bratton said in an interview. “The injunction really doesn’t prohibit us from doing anything we want to do during that time frame.”
The quarry would eventually consume 50 of the 105 acres Wake Stone is leasing from RDU and would be developed in stages, Bratton says.
Jean Spooner, who heads the Umstead Coalition, said her side is pleased with the judge’s decision, too, because it prevents mining for more than two years but also confirms that the company can’t prepare the land for mining until it has the permits.
Opponents of the quarry sought the injunction in part to prevent Wake Stone from making physical changes to the property that would preclude a future sale or lease to someone else. Shirley’s ruling prevents only one of type of potential change — mining rock for sale.
Spooner said opponents are confident the company won’t get the permits it needs to begin clearing the property.
“Wake Stone Corporation is asking for a private rock mine 400 feet deep on public property next to Umstead State Park and Crabtree Creek,” she said in an interview. “We believe that is disastrous for our public lands and should be denied.”
Bratton counters that Wake Stone’s current mine has been operating next to Umstead State Park for 38 years without any significant environmental problems.
“We’ve got a great record there, and our plan is to keep that record going,” he said.
RDU chose the quarry
The RDU Airport Authority voted a year ago to lease the property adjacent to Umstead State Park to Wake Stone for up to 35 years. The airport expects to receive between $20 million and $25 million from the company, mostly in the form of royalty payments from the sale of stone.
Opponents of the quarry say it should be added to Umstead State Park and had urged RDU to accept a competing offer from The Conservation Fund, a national environmental group, to purchase the property for as much as $6.8 million. The Airport Authority declined that offer in October 2017, and airport officials negotiated the mineral lease that was approved last March.
Two groups, the Umstead Coalition and Triangle Off-Road Cyclists or TORC, along with three individuals sued RDU and Wake Stone, arguing that the Airport Authority could not legally approve the lease without consulting the four local governments that own the airport, the cities of Raleigh and Durham and Durham and Wake counties.
In November, Shirley ruled that the airport’s charter and several other provisions of state law give the RDU Airport Authority power to lease the property. The opponents appealed, saying Shirley misinterpreted a provision of state law governing boards created by two or more municipalities.
The case will be heard before the state Court of Appeals, but the injunction request went to Shirley, the judge who made the initial ruling. Spooner said the fact that Shirley agreed to any kind of injunction is a sign he thinks opponents have a decent case.
“I think that sends a strong signal that we have a good chance on our appeal case,” she said.
Bratton says Wake Stone is optimistic, too, which is why it will begin building the bridge over Crabtree Creek and felling trees and removing dirt as soon as it has its permits.
“That is a risk that we take that we proceed and incur costs in the mine preparation, but we’re willing to take that risk,” he said. “We got such a strong ruling from the judge that we feel confident we can prevail.”
