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Vulcan variance OK'd by county

Feb, 18 2009

(Springwater, Georgia)  --  Residents of Springwater Plantation on Ga. Hwy. 154 tried one last time Tuesday to stop the expansion of the Vulcan quarry.

Residents spoke of broken windows, shifting foundations and cracks in the spillway of the subdivision's lake. All appear to be results of the blasting at the quarry.

In December, the Coweta County Board of Commissioners approved the rezoning and special use permit that have been sought by Vulcan since 2001. The rezoning approval laid out the buffers and setbacks Vulcan would be held to for its expansion eastward.
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After years of legal action, the commissioners finally approved the expansion after Vulcan bought out the property owners on Elzie Johnson Road and entered into an agreement to pay the Arbor Springs homeowners association $125,000. The residents of Springwater have received no compensation.

Though the commissioners approved the expansion, a special use permit for mining includes a 1,000-foot setback requirement, so a variance was needed.

Vulcan is not seeking any relief from the conditions placed on it, said Assistant County Attorney Nathan Lee. The variance was approved by a 4-1 vote Tuesday, with Commissioner Rodney Brooks opposed.

Before the vote, Springwater residents were allowed to speak.

C.E. Kirkpatrick has had to replace two windows at a cost of $1,000 each. Kirkpatrick believes the damage to the windows was caused by the vibrations from blasting. And last week he heard a loud noise in his kitchen. It turned his double-paned kitchen window had cracked.

"I can feel it every time they blast," he said.

Susan Rowe has lived in Springwater since 1991 but has noticed increased vibration in the last few years. In 2007, she had to have support jacks installed under her house because the foundation had shifted. It cost her $1,200.

"Now, it has shifted again, causing cracks in the tile in our bathroom upstairs," Rowe said. Also, several doors in her home will no longer close, and there are "huge cracks" in the ceiling.

Springwater resident Rob Tornow has a master's degree in engineering mechanics. He said one reason the vibrations have gotten worse is that Vulcan's quarry operations have reached the rock shelf that also runs under the Springwater subdivision.

The expansion will place the mining about 1,000 feet closer.

Paris Pacchione worries about the effect blasting could have on the underground gasoline tanks at four nearby gas stations.

Lexie Krekman said that, in October, a woman driving on U.S. Hwy. 29 was struck by a rock that came through her windshield. The rock appeared to have come from the quarry.

"Why would you want to put thousands of motorists at risk of flying rocks?" Krekman asked.

Brian O'Donnell, president of the Springwater homeowners association, said he feels Springwater residents have had their constitutional rights to due process violated.

"This so-called agreement with Arbor Springs has left out a majority of the homeowners in the area," O'Donnell said. "You can't just abrogate your duties as a commissioner to a homeowners association, one homeowners association, to figure out what is right," he said. "They are not a ruling body."

O'Donnell claimed the president of the Arbor Springs homeowners association, who signed the agreement, is an attorney who is actually representing Vulcan in another county.

Peter Degnan, attorney for Vulcan, said the expansion will actually reduce the vibrations.

"We focused on that," he said, "and what we ultimately agreed to is a stand that will govern vibration." Degnan said that standard is the strictest of any quarry he knows of.

Vulcan will make sure the peak particle velocity of "any component of ground motion" may not exceed .8 inches per second at the property line. "That standard will reduce, by a very, very significant level, the vibration," he said. This new standard will also be applied to the existing mining operation even though it is technically a grandfathered use, Degnan said. "I think this is going to be the blueprint, frankly, for any future quarry operations."

By Sarah Fay Campbell
The Times-Herald