NC DEQ will not appeal Wake Stone permit ruling; RDU quarry now in doubt
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- DEQ declines to appeal judge’s ruling, restoring quarry’s 2031 end date.
- Court found DEQ improperly altered permit; sunset clause reinstated to 2031.
- Wake Stone’s planned quarry expansion to adjacent RDU property now in doubt.
The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality will not contest a Wake County judge’s decision that sets an end date for the stone quarry operation next to William B. Umstead State Park.
Judge Sean A. Cole ruled earlier this month that the agency improperly altered a mining permit for Wake Stone Corp. that allowed it to quarry rock next to the park indefinitely.
The decision restored a clause that requires the company to cease mining by the end of 2031. Wake Stone, now owned by Vulcan Materials, used that mining permit to expand the quarry operation onto neighboring Raleigh-Durham International Airport property. Now those plans are in doubt.
The clause first appeared in the 1981 permit that allowed Wake Stone to open the Triangle Quarry off North Harrison Avenue. Permitting an open pit mine next to the state park was controversial, opposed by then Gov. Jim Hunt and state Attorney General Rufus Edmisten, among others.
‘Sunset clause’
After negotiations between the state and the company, the permit included a “sunset clause” that would effectively end mining by the end of 2031. The permit gave the state the right to acquire the quarry site at no cost “at the end of 50 years from the date quarrying commences or 10 years after quarrying operations have ceased without having been resumed, whichever is sooner.”
The clause remained in the company’s permit, through several renewals and modifications, until 2018. Wake Stone then asked state mining regulators to change the word “sooner” to “later,” postponing the state’s ability to acquire the property until 10 years after mining is finished, whenever that might be. The company made the request by email, calling the change a minor correction to an error that had simply been overlooked.
But Cole ruled that swapping one word for another was a major change that should have been subject to public scrutiny through the permitting process. The sunset clause was “a fundamental basis for the issuance of the original permit” in 1981, he wrote, and eliminating it was not a “ministerial correction,” as state regulators argued later.
The Umstead Coalition, a park advocacy group, sued the state in 2022, seeking to have the sunset clause restored. The case was first heard by Judge Donald van der Vaart at the N.C. Office of Administrative Hearings, who ruled in favor of the state Division of Energy, Mineral, and Land Resources, the agency within DEQ that handles mining permits.
The coalition appealed to Wake County Superior Court, which reversed van der Vaart’s decision.
‘DEQ is doing the right thing’
DEQ had 30 days to appeal Cole’s decision. In a one-sentence statement Monday, an agency spokesman said simply that it had decided not to. DEQ did not respond to a request to elaborate.
Jean Spooner, who heads the Umstead Coalition, said the public and the state parks system had counted on the sunset clause for decades.
“The Umstead Coalition is gratified that DEQ is doing the right thing,” Spooner wrote in a statement. “Protection of William B. Umstead State Park is critical.”
Wake Stone and Vulcan Materials have not responded to a request for comment.
This story was originally published December 22, 2025 at 4:14 PM.
