“A heavy industrial site does not generally make a great neighbor to a park,” Spooner said during a walk in the woods near the RDU property. “And this one is no exception.”

Bratton, who heads the company his father, John, started 74 years ago, takes a more pragmatic view on the proposed quarry. Rock needed to build roads, parking lots, houses, restaurants and other buildings in the Triangle has to come from somewhere, he says, and a central location off I-40 near Cary means shorter truck trips to where it’s needed.

Besides, Bratton says, the Triangle Quarry has been a good neighbor to Umstead since the 1980s.

“We’re not going to damage the park, and we’re not hurting anybody,” Bratton said, standing on the edge of the pit across Crabtree Creek from the RDU property. “We’re going to exist over there like we’ve existed over here, and most people don’t even know we’re here.”

It’s been five years since the RDU Airport Authority approved a mining lease with Wake Stone. The airport had acquired the patch of forest known as the Odd Fellows property in the 1970s for a proposed runway that was never built. RDU officials estimated that allowing Wake Stone to mine the property would generate more than $20 million, mostly through royalties from the sale of stone over 25 to 35 years.

Since then, the company and quarry opponents have spent well over $1 million on lawsuits. The Umstead Coalition failed to persuade the courts that the airport’s mineral lease with the company was illegal or to stop the state from modifying the mining permit to allow Wake Stone to expand.

But the group is still fighting a change in that permit that extended the life of the Triangle Quarry and makes the RDU project possible. Meanwhile, a permit Wake Stone needs to build a bridge over Crabtree Creek to connect the two quarry sites remains contested four years after state regulators first issued it.

Neither side is backing down.

Spooner says the Umstead Coalition has been through struggles like this before. She cites the successful effort to stop a proposed four-lane highway called the Duraleigh Connector along the eastern end of the park in the mid-1990s. Spooner became chair of the coalition during that battle and was credited with inspiring and holding together those who opposed the highway.

That effort took 15 years, she says. The fight over the RDU quarry is entering its ninth year.

...continued

©2024 The News & Observer. Visit at newsobserver.com. Distributed at Tribune Content Agency, LLC.