Large amounts of granite have been discovered at a Guilford County site that was once earmarked for clay mining.
The company that owns the property in Pleasant Garden now wants to open a rock quarry and is seeking approval from county officials to do that.
Attorney Tom Terrell has received an earful from Pleasant Garden residents. It's a quiet community outside of Greensboro. That's because he represents Lehigh Hanson, which wants to build a more than 300-acre granite quarry.
But Terrell sees opportunity, saying the project would have a big economic impact on the county. He says it would add more than a dozen high-paying jobs, and help lower construction costs.
“Just on today's prices, the average 100-foot driveway in Greensboro is 30 percent more than the same driveway in Raleigh,” says Terrell. “You think about what you are going to be paying - more for a school, stadium or something else in Greensboro.”
Some Pleasant Garden residents are protesting. They've held a few community meetings and even started a website to voice their opposition.
Gerald Hall has lived in the community for 58 years. He has a banner in his yard that says “No Rock Quarry Here.”
“Water quality, truck traffic, dynamiting, noise and dust, those are the big things,” says Hall. “The quality of life, we live out here in a rural community, we like this way of life. It's open, it's comfortable and it's relaxing and this makes it different. It's [the rock quarry is] going to bring unwanted stuff to us.”
But Terrell says the granite mining would have minimal impact on residents living near the site. He says the nearest home would be 1,500 feet away and the company would build noise barriers. He says blasting would only occur 2 to 4 times a month for short periods of time.
The County will have the final say on the matter. A public hearing before the Guilford County Planning Board is scheduled for September 13th.
*Follow WFDD's Keri Brown on Twitter @kerib_news