By Tabitha Evans MooreEDITOR & PUBLISHER
LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — A limestone quarry that has sat idle for decades off Winchester Highway already has a federal mine ID number, a state permit to discharge into Pitts Branch and state air coverage to run a rock crusher. What it does not have yet is the county’s permission.
That question goes to the Metropolitan Lynchburg/Moore County Board of Zoning Appeals on Tuesday. The meeting will take place at the County Building basement located at 241 Main Street.
Scott Fruehauf, owner of Lynchburg Stone LLC, is asking the board for a special exception to operate a quarry at 606 Winchester Highway (Highway 50), Map 038, Parcel 007.01.
The property is zoned A-1, Agriculture-Forestry. In that district, uses not specifically permitted or approved by the board as special exceptions are prohibited, so the quarry cannot open under county zoning without the board’s approval.
Fruehauf filed a one-page application on Oct. 2 with a $100 fee. It lists Ray and Gina Henshaw as the property owners and describes the land within 200 feet as zoned A-1 and R-1 residential.
On the form’s four impact questions, Fruehauf answered:
- No, the quarry will not affect ingress and egress to the property.
- No, it will not create a risk of harm or inconvenience, such as fire risk or traffic.
- Yes, it will need off-street loading: “Truck will be loaded in quarry area.”
- Yes, it will create noise, glare or odor for neighboring properties: “Noise during operating hours while crushing.”
The form does not state operating hours, expected truck traffic or how much stone the operation plans to produce.
A site layout drawing prepared in June by Pugh Wright McAnally, a civil engineering firm in Decatur, Alabama, and filed for the state water permit, shows a two-lane haul road running from Winchester Highway back to the quarry pit alongside an existing stream, with a 30-foot vegetative buffer between them. Where the haul route crosses the stream, the drawing narrows it to one lane, with truck standby areas on either side, traffic control signs, guardrails and boulder barriers. It also marks a future truck scale and scale house near the highway, an office and parking area, a sediment basin and a first phase of quarrying at the south end of the pit.
WHAT THE STATE AND FEDERAL PERMITS ALLOW
Lynchburg Stone has collected its outside approvals over the past five months:
- Federal mine ID. The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration assigned Mine ID 40-03655 to the “Lynchburg Quarry” operation, effective July 1, according to a July 8 notice. That triggers federal safety, injury and employment reporting requirements once the mine opens.
- Air coverage. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s air pollution division granted coverage July 6 under the state’s general permit for nonmetallic mineral crushing and sizing operations. It requires water spray at crushers, transfer points, stockpiles and roads, daily logs of that dust control, and bars visible dust from crossing the property line for more than five minutes in any hour or 20 minutes in a day. The general permit covers operations up to 3,500 tons per hour of crushing capacity; the documents do not say what capacity Lynchburg Stone plans.
- Water discharge permit. TDEC’s Division of Mineral and Geologic Resources issued National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit TN0070766 on Aug. 31. It runs from Sept. 1 through Aug. 31, 2031, covers 9.08 acres, and allows treated quarry wastewater and stormwater to drain from a sediment pond into Pitts Branch, part of the Upper Elk River watershed. Discharges are capped at 40 milligrams per liter of suspended solids and must be sampled twice a month; runoff from the haul road is monitored separately.
In its permit rationale, the state wrote that “the operator is proposing to reopen a quarry that has been idle for several decades.” A pre-mine inspection on June 2 found no processing machinery or activity on the site. The state concluded the discharge would cause only “de minimis degradation” of the stream and required no further review. Its checklist notes that the receiving waters are already listed as impaired for E. coli and for loss of streamside vegetation from livestock grazing; the permit does not authorize the quarry to add to either.
None of those approvals settles the local question. The air permit states it grants no authority to operate “in violation of any law, statute, code, ordinance, rule, or regulation” of the state or its political subdivisions, and the water permit says it does not authorize “any infringement of federal, state, or local laws or regulations.”
A BOARD IN TRANSITION
Tuesday will be the board’s first meeting since Chairman Keith Moses resigned at the close of the Aug. 18 meeting after nearly eight years on the board, saying he could not “in good conscience continue to serve.” Metro Mayor Sloan Stewart named recently elected Metro Council member Brady Goodwin to replace Moses. The remaining members listed in the August minutes are Houston Lindsey, Patrick Maynard, Peggy Blackburn and Josh Cook. Cook was absent from both the July and August meetings. He BZA will likely elected a new chair on Tuesday.
The board has struggled to reach decisions on its recent cases. On July 21, members split 2-2 on Gateway Development Co.’s appeal of its site plan denial and tabled it until all five members could attend. On Aug. 18, they voted 3-1 not to take the appeal back up, citing litigation between Moore County and Gateway. At the same meeting, Blackburn moved to approve a special exception for an RV park at the Retreat at Whiskey Creek; the motion died without a second.•
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