Location is bad for a stone quarry

To the editor: I come before you as a concerned citizen and taxpayer of this community.

US Aggregates, the present owner of the old Meshberger Brothers stone quarry, is asking Portland Plan Commission to rezone the 109-acre former Confer farm on the south side of Tyson Road and across from Jay County High School from agricultural/residential to industrial. This move would allow them to mine the property. I am concerned about blasting, putting contaminants in the air and decreasing property values in the neighborhood.

The rumble felt from the blasting within the high school will be a frontal assault. US Aggregates will tell you that Indiana regulations have a strict limit of 1 inch per second vibration per blast and that they are well below this number. This measurement is taken outside the building and does not include the effects of the blast inside the structure. At present, the high school rumbles, homes shake, windows and dishes rattle and US Aggregates wants to move closer to the school and city. This makes no sense.

Portland has the potential of growth to the west with residential housing; housing that would be close to the high school, our hospital and state highways. A stone quarry move to Tyson Road prevents this housing growth from happening. Who would develop that piece of land? Who would want to live that close to the stone quarry?

It doesn’t seem to me that US Aggregates did its homework very well. When I gave an assignment in my classroom I expected my students to do their homework. Did US Aggregates contact Jay School Corporation, local businesses and the people who live on the west side of Portland or Portland itself when they bought the land two and a half years ago?

I haven’t heard from anyone who believes the stone quarry should move across from our junior-senior high school or this close to the city. It’s not a good neighborhood move.

US Aggregates put the cart before the horse when they bought the land before contacting their future neighbors — the 1,000-plus students and staff at Jay County Junior-Senior High School, residents of the west side of Portland, including the Beacon Heights and Sheffer Acres developments.

As a retired teacher of 38 years, I would not accept the work that US Aggregates is submitting today. They want this to be a done deal and us naysayers to go away.

US Aggregates needs to go back to the drawing board and do the assignment as it should have been done two and a half years ago.

Look elsewhere, not so close to Portland.

Respectfully submitted,

Florine M. Golden

Portland