Joliet stands to get yearly payments of $140,000 worth of stone if it annexes land for a large new quarry, but residents who live near the proposed site say those who favor the plan must have rocks in their head.
On Thursday, a hearing before the City Planning Commission on the issue is expected to draw a large, angry crowd of nearby residents who don’t want a new quarry close to their back yards and next to their school.
Despite opposition, city officials are expected to recommend that the City Council approve the agreement that will allow Vulcan Materials Co. to move its operations from a 100-year-old quarry to new ground.
Under terms of the agreement, Joliet would rezone the area and annex three parcels of land along a mile-and-a-half-long finger west of Illinois Highway 53, extending southwest from Interstate Highway 80 to Laraway Road.
The new territory would include the old Vulcan quarry, land belonging to a chemical company and nearly 150 acres of the Steffes family farm, which will be the site of the new 100-acre quarry.
In return, Vulcan would give Joliet 30,000 tons of stone each year, thus saving the city an annual cost of $125,000 to $140,000, according to City Manager John Mezera.
Mezera likes the deal, but George Passas, who has lived in the same two-story home at Laraway Road and Chicago Street for 30 years, says a quarry in the area may endanger both life and limb.
Passas said he will present the Planning Commission with petitions signed by 1,200 residents who don’t want the new quarry. “The concerns of these people are real,” Passas says.
He added that blasting from a quarry could possibly damage wells and home foundations, reduce property values, and destroy a way of life.
He said students at the Laraway Elementary School, located to the south and east of the quarry site, would be at risk from, among other things, increased truck traffic rumbling past the school.
But last year, trustees of Laraway Community Consolidated School District 70 voted to approve an agreement with Vulcan in which the company would give the school district $25,000 a year each year the quarry is in operation. Vulcan officials estimate a 30-year life expectancy.
The company also promised to separate the quarry site from the school area with landscaping, limit blasting to after-school hours, routinely inspect the school building, and monitor air and water quality.
Vulcan also agreed to survey increased traffic in front of the school and pay for a crossing guard to direct school buses and trucks.
But Mary Baskerville of the Will County Environmental Network says the quarry should not be placed so near a school. “I have no quarrel with a new quarry, but only with its siting,” she said.
Other critics fear that blasting at the new quarry could cause leakage at a nearby landfill.
For its part, company officials say the present quarry is running out of rock, and they must shift their operations.
“We need a place with new reserves in order to stay in business in the Joliet area,” says Jim Urbas, Midwest director of administration for Vulcan.
Urbas says you can’t look at a 100-year-old quarry and imagine what will take place at the new site, with modern techniques.
“At times people won’t even know we’re there,” Urbas said. “Our plant is going to be 50 feet below grade. From ground level you won’t even see it. “
At peak weeks, there will be about 500 trucks operating daily in the new facility, hauling out about 1 million tons of rock and gravel each year.
From Joliet’s perspective it’s a great deal. “You need stone in every kind of construction, from sidewalks to roads to house foundations,” said Mezera.
Unfortunately for residents along the area, they won’t be annexed into the city, and thus have no real political clout at the ballot box if the City Council approves the plan.
Passas agreed that was a problem. “We have no legal recourse,” he said, “but I hope the council and the Planning Commission see the health issue involved.”
