Don't let quarry owners pollute and walk away

No one wants to look at the chalky plumes of dust that could make neighbors sick, or at the large, barren pits that scar the landscape when rock crushing and mining operations cease.

But that’s no excuse for state lawmakers to turn a blind eye.

As the Statesman’s Tony Plohetski recently reported, Texas quarries are among the least regulated in the country. The state does not require any sort of air quality monitoring to see whether quarries are stirring up dangerous amounts of dust that could cause coughing spasms, lung disease and other health problems for people nearby. Nor does the state require quarry operators to return the land to a useful condition, providing carte blanche for companies to strip away resources and leave a cavernous wasteland behind.

Quarry operators are required to register with the state and obtain a permit for crushing rock. As part of that application, operators must show they have a plan to keep dust levels within air quality standards. But the state, which approves nearly every permit, does not conduct independent testing of an operator's claims.

State lawmakers, some of whom receive sizable campaign donations from the industry, have largely failed to hold quarry operators to higher standards. Their inaction continued even after a governor’s advisory panel in 2005 called for a stronger permitting process and a requirement for quarry operators to restore the land within three years of ceasing mining.

Those recommendations came when Texas had just a few dozen registered rock, sand and gravel quarries and aggregate processing plants.

Now the state has nearly a thousand.

No doubt our fast-growing state needs a robust quarrying industry, producing raw materials for building roads and houses for the estimated 1,500 people moving to Texas each day. The industry has argued that additional regulations will make it harder and costlier to provide the goods to meet that demand.

That argument suggests Texans just need to accept unknown health risks from unmonitored air quality as an industry’s cost of doing business, and unsightly abandoned pits as the price of progress. Hogwash.

The cost of air monitoring technology has come down substantially in recent years. Studies show portable monitors costing between $250 and $450 provide test results reasonably close to those produced by traditional systems costing thousands of dollars. Such monitors can detect harmful levels of particulate matter — microscopic bits of rock dust and exhaust fumes that can get deep into people’s lungs and even into the bloodstream, posing the greatest problems for children, older adults and those with heart or lung disease.

Texas lawmakers should require air quality monitoring so operators can quickly recognize if their blasting and rock crushing are kicking up more dust than their permits allow — so they can adjust their work accordingly and keep neighbors safe. The state could direct the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to develop monitoring requirements in conjunction with experts on air-monitoring technology, to ensure reliable equipment is used.

Lawmakers should also hold quarry owners responsible for restoring the land in some way once mining ends. Abandoned pits can become safety hazards, hurt neighboring property values and hamper nearby development because no one wants to overlook a cratered piece of land.

But with the right development partner, an excavated site could be a valuable asset. A quarry in Connecticut was repurposed into a popular rock-climbing and zip-lining adventure park; another pit in British Columbia was converted into floral gardens that attract more than a million visitors a year. Atlanta is turning an old quarry into a city park with a massive water storage reservoir. And a Chinese developer built an 18-story luxury hotel, complete with rock climbing and bungee jumping, into the cliff wall of an old quarry outside Shanghai.

Prodding quarry owners to restore their sites encourages a prosperous use of the land and avoids blight. Lawmakers should recognize that goal is in harmony with Texas’ longstanding support of private property rights.

Homeowners have the right to feel safe in their homes and yards, without wondering whether the dust from a nearby quarry is hurting them.

Neighboring property owners have the right to enjoy and develop their land, without the unfair burden of overlooking a tract that has been stripped and discarded.

But that only happens if Texas lawmakers require quarry owners to behave as responsible property owners, too.