c 2002)

Natural Resources Research, Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2002 (°

Environmentalism and Natural Aggregate Mining

Lawrence J. Drew,1,4 William H. Langer,2 and Janet S. Sachs3

Received and accepted 12 October 2001

Sustaining a developed economy and expanding a developing one require the use of large vol-
umes of natural aggregate. Almost all human activity (commercial, recreational, or leisure)
is transacted in or on facilities constructed from natural aggregate. In our urban and sub-
urban worlds, we are almost totally dependent on supplies of water collected behind dams
and transported through aqueducts made from concrete. Natural aggregate is essential to the
facilities that produce energy—hydroelectric dams and coal-fired powerplants. Ironically, the
utility created for mankind by the use of natural aggregate is rarely compared favorably with
the environmental impacts of mining it. Instead, the empty quarries and pits are seen as large
negative environmental consequences. At the root of this disassociation is the philosophy of
environmentalism, which flavors our perceptions of the excavation, processing, and distribu-
tion of natural aggregate. The two end-member ideas in this philosophy are ecocentrism and
anthropocentrism. Ecocentrism takes the position that the natural world is a organism whose
arteries are the rivers—their flow must not be altered. The soil is another vital organ and
must not be covered with concrete and asphalt. The motto of the ecocentrist is “man must live
more lightly on the land.” The anthropocentrist wants clean water and air and an uncluttered
landscape for human use. Mining is allowed and even encouraged, but dust and noise from
quarry and pit operations must be minimized. The large volume of truck traffic is viewed as a
real menace to human life and should be regulated and isolated. The environmental problems
that the producers of natural aggregate (crushed stone and sand and gravel) face today are
mostly difficult social and political concerns associated with the large holes dug in the ground
and the large volume of heavy truck traffic associated with quarry and pit operations. These
concerns have increased in recent years as society’s demand for living space has encroached
on the sites of production; in other words, the act of production has engendered condemna-
tion. Many other environmental problems that are associated with dust and noise and blasting
from quarry and pit operations have been reduced through the efficient use of technology.
Recycling concrete in buildings, bridges, and roads and asphaltic pavements will ultimately
reduce the demand for virgin natural aggregate. The impact created by the large holes in the
ground required for the mining of natural aggregate can be greatly reduced by planning their
reclamation before mining begins.

KEY WORDS: Environmentalism and mining; natural aggregate production; ecocentrism; anthropocen-
trism; recycling; reclamation; NIMBY; crushed stone; sand and gravel; pits and quarries.

INTRODUCTION environmental hazards associated with production

The natural aggregate industry has used science
and technology to reduce and eliminate many of the
1 U.S. Geological Survey, Mail Stop 954, Reston, Virginia 20192.
2 U.S.
Geological Survey, Mail Stop 973, Denver, Colorado 80225.
3 U.S. Geological Survey, Mail Stop 984, Reston, Virginia 20192.
4 To whom correspondence should be addressed. (e-mail: ldrew@
usgs.gov)
processes. The environmental issues that remain to
be solved are difficult social and political concerns
that arise when society, in its desire for human liv-
ing space, encroaches on the sites where natural ag-
gregate is produced. The peculiar irony of natural
aggregate production is that the citizens who com-
plain about the pit or quarry near their neighbor-
hoods would have no neighborhoods without that pit

19
1520-7439/02/0300-0019/1 °
C 2002 International Association for Mathematical Geology
20
or quarry. Consequently, as the urban and suburban
development that is dependent on the production of
natural aggregate proceeds, the pits or quarries from
which the natural aggregate is produced are increas-
ingly condemned; in other words, the act of produc-
tion creates its own condemnation.
Natural aggregate (sand, gravel, and crushed
stone) is the most valuable nonfuel mineral com-
modity in the world, and life without it is difficult
to imagine. Sustaining the economies of the devel-
oped countries and expanding those of the develop-
ing nations are impossible without the vigorous use
of natural aggregate to build and maintain the ur-
ban and suburban infrastructure. Whether we are at
work, in transit, in our homes, or at recreation, we
use structures that are created almost entirely out
of natural aggregate. These structures include build-
ings, water catchment and delivery systems, sanitary
sewers, highways, bridges, airports, parking lots, side-
walks, driveways, railroad beds, loading facilities for
ships and barges, and canals with their system of
locks. In volume, natural aggregate composes about
85% of these structures; the binder (Portland cement
and asphalt in pavement) and the reinforcing skele-
tons, which are made of structural steel, compose the
remaining 15%.
Life in the urban and suburban worlds is de-
pendant on supplies of water that are collected be-
hind dams and transported through aqueducts and
pipelines constructed of natural aggregate in the form
of concrete. The human waste generated in urban/
suburban life requires a complex of transport and
treatment facilities that, in large part, are built of con-
crete. Unbound natural aggregate is used widely in the
waste-water filtration part of these systems.
Natural aggregate has an important role in the
production of energy—coal-fired electric powerplants
are built of concrete and use unbound natural aggre-
gate (crushed limestone) to scrub flue gases of pollu-
tants. Hydroelectric power (10% of our total electric
power) is generated from a system of concrete dams.
During 2000, about 2.76 billion metric tons of
natural aggregate—crushed stone, sand, and gravel—
with a value of $14.4 billion was produced in the
United States (Bolen, 2001; Tepordei, 2001). Natu-
ral aggregate production had a greater value than the
copper, gold, and silver produced during this same
year. Construction aggregate makes up more than
80% of the total natural aggregate market. The re-
maining 20% of the natural aggregate market in-
cluded limestone for agriculture and Portland cement.
Drew, Langer, and Sachs
Because mining natural aggregate is an extractive
industry, man must dig holes, holes so large that they
are often measured as part of a square mile. From
these holes is obtained the enormous physical volume
of natural aggregate that is required to build our cities
and suburbs. The facilities in our cities determine the
dimensions and number of their companion pits and
quarries.
Ironically, the utility created in the urban and
suburban worlds is rarely, if ever, weighed against
the impact on the environment caused by mining and
transporting natural aggregate to construction sites.
The pits and quarries are judged solely as unpleasant,
unaesthetic scars on the landscape. This judgment is
heightened further by the length of time natural ag-
gregate is mined at a site—25 to 50 years or longer.
Evidence of a mining operation may exist for more
than a human life span.
Understanding the complex interconnections
among sources of natural aggregate and where the
aggregate is used helps prepare citizens for the neces-
sary discussions and decisions concerning the increas-
ing need for natural aggregate by society and the re-
lated environmental tradeoffs. The challenge is how
to achieve balance between the two.
NATURAL AGGREGATE MINING CYCLE
Exploration
Natural aggregate producers expend tremendous
amounts of time and money in exploration, charac-
terization, the permitting process to locate and deter-
mine the quality and quantity of the resource, and the
determination of the possibility of production. Explo-
ration for deposits of natural aggregate involves locat-
ing a suitable product near where it is to be used. This
process often involves interaction between the natu-
ral aggregate producer and the local community. With
the passage of time, the production of natural aggre-
gate has evolved from the use of easily available local
material to much more-limited production options.
Exploration for deposits of natural aggregate has be-
come more costly as production options have become
more limited. Much “exploration” today is done by
corporate acquisition of properties on which reserves
already have been permitted.
The traditional methods of exploring for natural
aggregate resources are not disruptive to the envi-
ronment. These methods include geologic field work
Environmentalism and Natural Aggregate Mining
studies of glacial/fluvial systems for sand and gravel
reserves and the study of rock properties for crushed
stone reserves (Langer, 1988; Dunn, 1991). The minor
environmental disturbance involved with trenching
and digging test pits for sand and gravel resources are
easily remedied, and the drill holes used to evaluate
an area for crushed stone reserves cause virtually no
disturbance of the environment.
Natural aggregate generally is available on the
Earth’s surface only where certain geological pro-
cesses have occurred (Langer and Glanzman, 1993).
Sand and gravel occurs where streams and glaciers in-
teracted with valleys. Similarly, crushed stone deposits
are located where particular biogenic-sedimentary, ig-
neous, and metamorphic processes occurred. In addi-
tion, even when natural aggregate occurs within in
a local market, it may not be produced because it is
either not of sufficient quality or inaccessible.
During mining, the geological properties of a po-
tential natural aggregate resource influence the type
of environmental impacts. The environmental impact
caused by mining limestone will differ from that of
granite or sand and gravel. The geometry of granitic
and limestone sources of crushed stone and glacial
and fluvial sources of sand and gravel can have very
different areas of ground disturbance associated with
them. For example, quarrying a thin, flat-lying lime-
stone bed with thick overburden will likely disturb
the environment more than if a thick granitic intru-
sive body with thin overburden is quarried. To ob-
tain the same amount of material, more surface area
will be disturbed, and more overburden will have
to be removed in the limestone quarry than in the
granite quarry. Of course, the limestone might have
certain properties that the granitic rock does not
possess and, therfore, be developed instead of the
granite.
Mining Process
By the very nature of the extractive process, the
environment will be disturbed during the mining of
aggregate. Large pits and quarries, which are often
measured as parts of a square mile, must be dug in
the ground. In many places these pits and quarries
are in production for 25 to 50 years, and longer, and
in some places, they are seen easily by the popula-
tion. In other words, pits and quarries are experienced
by the community in physical, visual, and aesthetic
terms.
21
Sand and gravel is mined from open pits and
dredged from underwater bodies. If the pit devel-
oped to extract sand and gravel does not penetrate the
watertable, then the sand and gravel is dry and can be
extracted by using conventional earth-moving equip-
ment, such as bulldozers, front loaders, track hoes, and
scraper graders (Langer, 2001). If excavation pene-
trates the watertable, then groundwater will enter the
pits. Pits can be dewatered by collecting the ground-
water in drains in the floor of the pit and pumping
the water out or by constructing slurry walls or other
barriers to groundwater flow around the pit. After
groundwater drains from the deposit, sand and gravel
can be extracted by using the dry mining techniques
described above. In some situations in which the sand
and gravel pits penetrate the watertable, the pit may
be allowed to fill with water, and the material can be
extracted by using draglines, clamshells. bucket and
ladder, or hydraulic dredges. The same techniques
apply when sand and gravel is extracted from under
natural water bodies.
To produce crushed stone, bedrock is drilled,
blasted, and mined from an open-pit quarry or, in
some situations, from underground mines (Langer,
2001). Blasting commonly breaks the rock into pieces
that are suitable for crushing. The blasted material is
dry and can be extracted by using conventional earth-
moving equipment. Where rock quarries penetrate
the groundwater, they can be dewatered by using the
same collection and pumping techniques that are used
to dewater sand and gravel pits. The broken rock
then is mined by using the procedures followed in
dry quarry. In some areas, however, quarries are al-
lowed to fill with water. The rock is drilled and blasted,
and the broken rock is extracted by using draglines,
clamshells, or other equipment. The aggregate may
be processed wet or may be placed in windrows and
allowed to dry before processing.
Natural aggregate also is extracted from about
100 underground mines by using room-and-pillar
methods in the United States. Most of these mines,
which are located in the Midcontinent, produce lime-
stone and dolomite. After mining has been completed,
the underground spaces provide many opportuni-
ties for future use. The Kansas City, Missouri, area
is the international leader in the innovative use of
these underground spaces for warehousing, manufac-
turing, offices, businesses, and service-related activ-
ities. More than 3,000 people work underground at
about 25 sites that comprise almost 2 square kilo-
meters. One very innovative use is as relatively low
22
cost space for humidity- and temperature-controlled
facilities with stable, vibration-free platforms useful
for the fabrication of precision instruments.
Philosophy of Environmentalism
In the latter half of the 20th century, concern
for the environment became a central political issue
in most countries of the world. This concern can
be divided into two broad, but not mutually exclu-
sive doctrines—anthropocentrism and ecocentrism
(Drew, 1996a, 1996b, 1997a, 1997b, 1998a, 1998b,
1998c, 1999).
Anthropocentrism focuses on the environment
as it is used by humans as a source of sustenance, recre-
ation, and aesthetics. Through the technology of agri-
culture and civil engineering, humans use nature to
supply themselves with food, fibre, shelter, roads, and
bridges and to enhance their spirit through recreation
and appreciation of the aesthetics of nature. Anthro-
pocentrism emphasizes the maintenance of a clean
and wholesome environment for humans and the nat-
ural system. The Earth is not to be misused or scarred
beyond a certain level. Waste products of all types
are to be recycled where possible within an economic
context and, in general, minimized. The air and water
are to be kept clean by the natural system for human
and other uses.
Ecocentrism differs from anthropocentrism by
assigning an intrinsic value to nature as a whole, thus
deemphasizing the use of nature for human benefit
(Drew, 1996a, 1996b, 1997a). The well-being of hu-
mans as a species is not valued over that of any other
species. Further, no species in a food chain (e.g., the
coyote, the rabbit, or the blade of grass) is valued
more than any other species in any part of the natural
system.
To differing degrees, ideas from these two
doctrinal/belief systems have influenced and are in-
fluencing political decisions about the use of land to
produce natural aggregate. The concept of NIMBY,
which is the acronym for Not-in-My-Back-Yard, is
not new or unique to our times—Pliny the Elder,
the Roman naturalist who died during the eruption
of Vesuvius in AD 79, wrote that Roman citizens
thought mining was an appropriate activity for con-
quered lands, but was not appropriate in the home-
land (Timmons, 1990). More recently, this concept,
which is based principally on anthropocentric ideas,
has prevented the opening of many pieces of land
Drew, Langer, and Sachs
for natural aggregate production (Drew, 1999). It has
been applied to prevent the siting of noxious indus-
trial activities, such as steel mills and petroleum re-
fineries, near human dwelling spaces.
Ideas from the doctrine of ecocentrism have en-
forced further the restrictiveness of NIMBY in limit-
ing development of sites to produce natural aggregate.
At the core of ecocentrism is the idea that the Earth is
a unified organic system (Drew, 1996b, 1997b, 1998a,
1998c). Rivers are compared with arteries in humans,
they carry life through the various parts of the body.
Rivers, therfore, must run “wild and free” to go where
they will. To dam a river is to interfere with nature
in a most egregious manner. Wetlands are the equiv-
alent of the reproductive center, kidneys, and liver
because life here at the bottom of the food chain is
most vigorous in creating and storing nutrients for
life forms and cleaning up the waste products made
by the natural system. “We humans must live more
lightly on the land” is the ecocentrist’s motto (Drew,
1997b).
Ecocentrism argues that human society must
become simpler and use fewer resources from the
land, air, and water—humans must dematerialize
(Drew, 1996b). Producing increasing volumes of nat-
ural aggregate to build more and increasingly larger
single-family homes, sidewalks, streets, highways, and
bridges is ethically wrong. Concrete and asphalt cover
the soil with a shroud of death by smothering nature
and forcing the flow of rainwater off the land into
sewers and on to the sea. Soil is a precious mass of
biological activity that, like the river and wetland, is
to be cherished and defended.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
The large holes in the ground made during min-
ing natural aggregate are left unreclaimed after min-
ing is completed. They are obvious physical distur-
bances of the landscape and are a mirror image of
the enormous above-ground facilities of our cities and
suburbs. These empty places on the landscape are fo-
cal points for the ecocentrists in their battle with soci-
ety to live more lightly on the land. In addition to the
large holes, anthropocentrists are concerned with the
associated effects of blasting, noise, and dust of min-
ing, as well as the heavy truck traffic, particularly in
the local community, required to move the product to
market.
Environmentalism and Natural Aggregate Mining
Unlike most metallic resources, aggregate is not
concentrated from an ore. Instead, natural aggregate
is used in its natural state, except for crushing, screen-
ing, and washing, whereas many metallic ores occur
where they were deposited as a result of hydrother-
mal processes (Langer, 2001). Hydrothermally al-
tered rocks contain high concentrations of metals
bound in sulfide and sulfate minerals. It is the mining
and processing of these rocks to extract the metals that
produces acidic mine drainage or other toxic affects
commonly associated with the metallic resources.
In contrast, only a small amount of waste material
is generated during the mining of natural aggregate.
The soil overburden can be sold for landscape uses or
stockpiled for reclamation. The small amount of fine
material generated from washing aggregate can be
sold for a variety of agricultural (i.e., chicken grit)
and industrial (i.e., shingle roofing granules) uses.
Blasting at rock quarries may occur daily or be as
infrequent as once or twice a year. Some potential im-
pacts from blasting are ground vibrations, noise, dust,
and flyrock (Langer, 2001). The technology of rock
blasting is highly developed. By following widely rec-
ognized and well-documented limits, direct impacts
from ground shaking and air concussion can be ef-
fectively mitigated, and the environmental impacts
should be negligible.
Aggregate producers are responsible for assur-
ing that the noise emitted from the pit or quarry does
not exceed levels set by regulations (Langer, 2001).
The primary sources of noise during aggregate ex-
traction and processing are from earth-moving equip-
ment, blasting, crushing equipment, screening equip-
ment, and trucks. The impacts of noise are dependent
on the sound source, topography, land use, ground
cover of the surrounding site, and climatic conditions.
The beat, rhythm, and pitch of noise affect the impact
of the noise on the hearer. Sound-deadening enclo-
sures, mufflers, topographic barriers, or vegetated ar-
eas can shield or absorb noise. The proper location
of access roads, use of acceleration and deceleration
lanes, and careful routing of trucks can help reduce
this noise source on communities. Workers are pro-
tected from noise through the use of enclosed, air-
conditioned cabs on equipment and, where necessary,
the use of hearing protectors. Maintaining workers’
safety may include regular health screenings.
Dust generated during mining may occur as fugi-
tive dust from excavation, haul roads, and blasting or
from plant-generated sources, such as drilling, crush-
ing and screening. Federal, state, and local regulations
23
put strict limits on the amount of airborne material
that may be released from a site, and a carefully pre-
pared and implemented dust control plan will keep
emissions beneath the required limits.
Controlling fugitive emissions usually depends
on the use of water trucks, sweepers, and chemical ap-
plications on haul roads; control of vehicle speed; and
construction of windbreaks and plantings (Langer,
2001). The impacts from plant-generated dust can be
mitigated by either wet suppression systems, which
consist of pressurized water (or surfactant treated wa-
ter) sprays located at dust-generating sites throughout
the plant, or dry control systems, which include covers
on conveyors, vacuum systems, and bag houses that re-
move dust before the air stream is released to the at-
mosphere. Workers are protected from dust through
the use of enclosed air-conditioned cabs on equipment
and, where necessary, the use of respirators.
Although a correlation between rock dust and
the health of communities located near pits and quar-
ries has not been proven, there is a general concern
that the dust can affect human health. Before World
War II, however, silicosis, which is a progressive dis-
ease that causes death by heart or respiratory fail-
ure in its acute stage and has been associated with
tuberculosis, was diagnosed among those who worked
in mines, quarries, sandblasting, and milling and
finishing silica-rich stone and other products—
professions in which fine-grained rock dust was pro-
duced during the manufacturing process (Ross, 1999).
Since that time, dust collection and suppression equip-
ment has been used universally in the United States
and many other countries. Consequently, silicosis has
declined steadily and become nonexistent for quarry
and sand and gravel-pit workers. For example, no
cases of this disease have been reported since 1950
among the granite workers in Vermont where 34 peo-
ple had died from the disease before 1930 [Ross, 1999].
Communities near natural aggregate quarries, how-
ever, are concerned that the required drilling, blasting,
crushing, and trucking can produce invisible and un-
detectable airborne hazards, such as very fine grained
crystalline silica, that will impact the health of un-
protected residents. No studies, however, have been
undertaken to test this hypothesis. In 1987, the Inter-
national Agency for Research on Cancer identified
a possible association between crystalline silica and
lung cancer. To date, the results from the animal stud-
ies have been rather inconclusive (Ross, 1999).
In the practical sense of everyday suburban/
urban life, the most difficult problem faced by natural
24
aggregate producers is that of the large trucks that
haul sand, gravel, crushed stone, wet concrete, and hot
asphaltic pavement to the construction sites. Because
more than 90% of the natural aggregate is trucked
an average of 35 miles to the construction site, this
truck traffic must inevitably intermingle with the civil-
ian automobile traffic in local communities. Trucks by
their size and weight, their noise, and the smell of
their diesel exhaust are aesthetically unpleasing and
unharmonious components in the commercial life of
a community.
Ship, barge, and rail transport are cost-efficient
modes of transporting natural aggregate from distant
pits and quarries and thereby eliminate long truck
hauls on the major highways. Ships and barges deliver
large volumes of crushed stone to ports along the Gulf
Coast from the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, and down
the Mississippi River and other waterways. Similarly,
sand and gravel and crushed stone are delivered from
the Canadian seaboard provinces to ports along the
East and the West Coasts of the United States and
from the Bahamas to the East Coast. The multidecade
rehabilitation of Boston, Massachusetts, has used mil-
lions of tons of natural aggregate delivered by rail to
distribution yards where it was redistributed by short-
haul trucks to the construction sites.
The irony of the heavy truck is that despite its
necessity, it is a threat to the safety and peace of the
community. And there is truth in this portrayal—large
trucks accounted for 3% of all registered vehicles, 7%
of total vehicle miles, and 12% of traffic fatalities
in 1998. In 1999, 8% of traffic fatalities resulted from
collisions with large trucks, but in 81% of those cases,
the other driver was at fault (National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, 1999). In most traffic sit-
uations, the braking systems of large trucks cannot
stop them as efficiently as those of normal passenger
automobiles. Yet as a group, truck drivers are care-
ful drivers with lower rates of previous license sus-
pensions (50% of the rate of passenger automobile
drivers) or alcohol involvement (4% of the rate of
passenger automobile drivers) when involved in an
accident in which a fatality occurs. These statistics are
from all truck traffic, not exclusively trucks that haul
natural aggregate.
An uneasy peace can be established when the
large trucks are well-maintained and operated and
when automobile drivers yield reasonable space so
that the truck drivers can maneuver and stop safely,
thus reducing the number of accidents. The trucks are
equipped with mud flaps and load covers to prevent
loose material from being thrown from wheels and
Drew, Langer, and Sachs
off of loads, and acceleration and deceleration lanes
are constructed at the entrance of the pit or quarry to
improve the ability of truck to enter and exit civilian
traffic more smoothly.
Environmental Ethics
There is an economic cost to limiting environ-
mental impacts while developing natural aggregate
resources. Economic costs can be in the form of in-
creased costs for land acquisition, equipment, pro-
cessing, or transportation. In some areas, the eco-
nomic costs may add an overwhelming burden to the
cost of developing the resource. If so, then the prop-
erty may not be developed or compromises between
the cost of extracting aggregate and the environmen-
tal impacts of extraction might be made.
What constitutes an overwhelming burden is rel-
ative. In part, it depends on the wealth of an area
and the ability of the citizenry in the area to pay the
added costs. Less economically developed areas have
less wealth to prevent or address environmental im-
pacts. In some situations, the incentive to address en-
vironmental issues may be lacking. In less economi-
cally developed areas, a few environmental impacts
might seem to be a small price to pay for what can
be gained through developing aggregate resources to
build an infrastructure. Impacts that affect health and
safety or that are long lasting and far reaching would
be unlikely candidates for compromise.
Economically developed areas usually have the
funding available to address environmental issues.
Even so, citizens in some economically developed ar-
eas may feel that the best way to avoid environmental
impacts is to avoid development of resources within
their jurisdiction.
The question of ethics arises when one recog-
nizes that aggregate resources have to be developed
somewhere. When a wealthy area excludes the devel-
opment of aggregate resources within its jurisdiction,
it must obtain resources from some other area. The
overall affect may be one of not preventing environ-
mental impacts, but of exacerbating and relocating
them. If the area that provides the aggregate is signif-
icantly less wealthy, for example, then it probably will
be less able to address environmental issues. To add
to the burden, per capita consumption of aggregate
usually increases with wealth. The wealthy area may
demand more aggregate from a poor area than the
poor area demands for its own needs. Not only must
the citizens in the less economically developed area
Environmentalism and Natural Aggregate Mining
suffer their own environmental problems, but they
also must suffer the environmental impacts for those
in the wealthier area.
The Boyds, Maryland, Diabase Crushed Stone
Project—A Case Study
The denial of a permit to produce 1 billion
tons of crushed stone at Boyds, Montgomery County,
Maryland—one of the wealthiest counties in the
nation—demonstrates the situation that quarrymen
are facing along the Eastern Seaboard, as well as in
much of the country (Drew, 1998). The decision not to
issue the permit was finally made in the late 1980s af-
ter a 15-year process that cost the Rockville Crushed
Stone Company millions of dollars in land acquisi-
tion, legal fees, and other costs. The initial denial of
the permit to operate was made by the Montgomery
County Zoning Board, a decision that was upheald in
the appellate courts.
The failure to obtain a permit prevented a heavily
populated part of the State of Maryland from having
an inexpensive local source of nonskid crushed stone
(so-called for its property to reduce automobile acci-
dents through better traction, particularly when the
pavement is wet).
At issue in this decision is who “owns” the
crushed stone resource. Is it the immediate neighbors
who live in the surrounding 1 to 2 miles of the pro-
posed site of the quarry? Or is it the general popula-
tion living in the greater 3,000- to 4,000-square-mile
area that the quarry would have served? The next
nearest source is about 65 miles away at quarries near
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
The homeowners in Boyds and the surrounding
area organized to oppose permitting the quarry on
the basis of blasting vibration, noise, and truck traffic,
although the real issue seemed to be the truck traffic.
The company responded with a plan to haul much of
the crushed stone from the quarry to three distribu-
tion sites by rail, thus greatly diminishing truck traffic
in the town. Land was acquired for these three sites,
and yet, even though issue of truck traffic was much
reduced, the Montgomery County Zoning Board was
still very sensitive to the wishes of the residents of
Boyds. In an act of desperation, the company pro-
posed to haul all the crushed stone from the quarry by
rail, thereby removing all truck traffic from the Boyds
area. The Zoning Board rejected this proposal.
The company then appealed its case to the
Maryland Circuit Court, which did not overturn the
25
decision of the Zoning Board. The company’s next
step was to appeal to the Court of Special Appeals of
the State of Maryland, which refused to hear the case,
thereby reinforcing the decision of the local Zoning
Board. The body of appeal law is based on the idea
that the appeals courts do not have to act on the ev-
idence, they only have to consider it; consequently,
zoning decisions by a local jurisdiction are very diffi-
cult to overturn through the appellate system.
In the Boyds case, the Zoning Board did not
question the conclusion that the county would have to
pay more for the large amount of crushed stone that it
used each year. Rather, the higher cost was acceptable
because the citizens of the region would rather pay the
higher price of imported crushed stone than to have a
new quarry at Boyds. In summary, the Zoning Board
determined the higher cost of imported crushed stone
and the ability of the Boyds diabase to reduce traffic
accidents to be insignificant.
Sometime in the future, federal and state ju-
risdictions may establish effective resource produc-
tion corridors in which new reserves of crushed stone
and sand and gravel can be permitted for produc-
tion. Until then, the Boyds story may be repeated
when producers apply to permit new reserves in
“greenfields.”
RECLAMATION
Pits and quarries are, and ought to be, interim
uses of the land. After depletion of the resource, phys-
ically disturbed land can be reclaimed for other resi-
dential, commercial, and natural uses. In many areas,
reclamation of the disturbed land and its ecosystem is
required to be a part of the plan to mine natural aggre-
gate. In expanding suburban areas, previously mined
gravel pits may be converted into golf courses
and bird refuges, and rock quarries are converted
into water-storage reservoirs and recreational wa-
ter bodies. Some exhausted pits and quarries, how-
ever, remain unreclaimed in developed or developing
suburban areas.
Mining natural aggregate creates economic
wealth, and the facilities made from it improve the
quality of human life. Reclaiming the mine site and as-
sociated areas almost always creates additional wealth
and improves the quality of life; for example, lake-
front residential property, industrial and commercial
properties, office parks, and landfills. These types of
reclamation often occur in or near urban centers with
large populations.
26
For more than 150 years, mined-out pits and quar-
ries have been reclaimed to create public facilities
(Arbogast, Knepper, and Langer, 2000). The public
Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in Paris (c. 1864–69) was
built upon old quarried limestone and gypsum pits,
an abandoned gallows and mass grave, and a sewage
dump. Beginning in 1904, Butchart Gardens in British
Columbia, Canada, turned 50 acres of an exhausted
limestone quarry into a premier botanical garden.
In the 1950s, a dance floor and orchestra shell were
built in an abandoned quarry near Toledo, Ohio; such
big bands as Tommy Dorsey’s and Benny Goodman’s
played there. At some reclamation projects, an artistic
approach has been used to create celebrated works of
beauty. One pioneer in the earthworks-as-art move-
ment was Robert Smithson who, as part of an interna-
tional art exhibition in the Netherlands, used a sand
pit and a body of water to build a circular jetty and
canal that he named “Broken Circle.” The symmetri-
cal landform is about 140 feet in diameter and evokes
images of dikes and polders that are the backbone
of the Dutch landscape. The festival stage Dalhalla at
Rättvik, Sweden, was built in Draggängarna, a former
limestone quarry; the resulting 3,000-seat natural am-
phitheater hosts operas with stage and light settings
adapted to the mighty rock walls, all types of choir
music, jazz and big band concerts, and symphonic and
chamber music.
The quarry at Quarry Cove on the Oregon coast
has been converted into a manmade tidal zone fed and
nourished by wave action (Arbogast, Knepper, and
Langer, 2000). Quarry Cove, which was developed by
the Bureau of Land Management, provides a variety
of wildlife habitats and is expected to have species
diversity comparable to a natural tidal pool within 5
to 10 years. At the site, which is wheel-chair accessible,
visitors can view nature taking its course as marine life
returns to the area. The cove is an exciting example
of an exhausted site becoming a “natural” biological
laboratory with community outreach.
Some mined areas have undergone major nega-
tive environmental changes after mining ceased. For
example, the U.S. Department of Defense and the
Atomic Energy Commission dumped contaminated
debris into the Weldon Spring Quarry near St. Louis,
Missouri, for nearly 30 years (Arbogast, Knepper, and
Langer, 2000). Groundwater contamination spread
towards well fields that supplied homes and indus-
tries throughout the area until 1989 when a cleanup
of the bulk waste began under the U.S. Environmen-
tal Protection Agency Superfund Program and the
State of Missouri. High-quality clay soil was required
Drew, Langer, and Sachs
to construct the permanent disposal facility and to
make it impervious to water. Nearly 2 million cubic
yards of clay was excavated from more than 200 acres
of land in the nearby Weldon Spring Conservation
Area. In this situation, the cleanup of one mine site
required the construction of another.
RECYCLING
The goal of recycling is to supply a growing popu-
lation with natural resources while avoiding excessive
waste (Wilburn and Goonan, 1998). Aging U.S. infras-
tructure, decreasing availability of landfill space, and
environmental concerns work together to stimulate
the recycling of asphalt and cement bounded aggre-
gate. Two approaches to recycling these materials
are being used—hauling the debris to a permanent
recycling facility or crushing and screening the debris
at the demolition site where the aggregate is reused
as soon as it is processed. Recycling at the demo-
lition site reduces heavy materials hauling, thereby
reducing transportation costs, energy use, and wear
and tear on roads and equipment. Today, the use of
recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) and recycled con-
crete (RCC) saves huge amounts of space in landfills.
This fact alone makes recycling economic as a result
of saving the cost of depositing material in a landfill.
Federal and state safety codes require the use of vir-
gin natural aggregate in the construction of buildings,
bridges, and similar facilities, as well as highway sur-
faces. Thus, the uses of recycled RAP and RCC, at
present, are limited to high-volume, low-quality ap-
plications, such as base course material in highways
and as common fill.
Asphalt paving materials are recovered from de-
molished roads. These are valuable for the asphalt
binder and the aggregate. More than 100 million tons
per year of worn-out asphalt pavement was recovered.
About 80% of the recovered material was recycled,
and the remaining 20% was placed in landfills. Two-
thirds of the recycled material was used as aggregate
for road base, and the remaining one-third of the re-
cycled material was reused as aggregates for new as-
phalt hot mixes (Kelly, 1998). About 100 million tons
per year of concrete was recycled into usable aggre-
gates. Aggregates produced from recycled concrete
supplied roughly 5% of the total aggregates market
(Wilburn and Goonan, 1998).
An estimated 68% of the aggregates recycled
from concrete was used as road base. The remainder
was used for asphalt hot mixes (9%), such low-value
Environmentalism and Natural Aggregate Mining
products as general fill (7%), new concrete mixes
(6%), high-value riprap (3%), and other (7%) (Deal,
1997, p. 11).
The future for recycling aggregates will be in-
fluenced by landfill availability, greater product ac-
ceptance, continuing government recycling mandates,
and increased availability of material for recycling
from the large stock of existing infrastructure, as well
as by the demand for the sustainable and wise uses of
resources in the economy.
PROVIDING FOR THE FUTURE
A balanced approach to the production of
natural aggregate requires the evaluation of many
concerns—keeping the cost low, minimizing the im-
pact of operations at the mine site and during trans-
port to the construction site on the public, and pro-
tecting the ecosystem through careful planning of pit
and quarry development and reclamation. In reach-
ing a balance, several tradeoffs have to be made. The
overall cost to society and the economy of mining nat-
ural aggregate can be minimized by locating the pits
and quarries as close as possible to the construction
sites. This overall cost is the total of all the costs of all
the resources that must be mined or drilled to deliver
natural aggregate to the construction site. These re-
sources include the large volume of metals required
in the manufacture of heavy trucks, the fuel required
to run them, and the petroleum products used in the
manufacture of the truck tires. The overall cost of
natural aggregate rises when society, for environmen-
tal reasons that include concerns about damage to
the ecosystem, aesthetics, noise, dust, health hazards,
and truck traffic, demands that the mining sites be
removed from certain areas, especially where people
live and work. When properly implemented, resource
corridors, mine overlay zones, or extraction zones can
help solve the dilemma that is increasingly limiting
the options of the producers of natural aggregate
in siting their pits and quarries. These corridors and
zones are setaside areas created through local, county,
state, and federal government authorities. They have
been proposed in Virginia and California and im-
plemented with some success (Werth, 1980; Beeby,
1998).
There is broad optimism for the wide application
of aggregate in new construction using recycled con-
crete and asphaltic pavement. The country faces the
task of replacing a large segment of its infrastructure
that was constructed of asphaltic pavement. A major
27
barrier to expanding the use of demolition waste are
the regulations for new construction dictated by fed-
eral and state agencies that oversee the safety as-
pects of the infrastructure. Scientific research and
engineering development will improve the perfor-
mance, reliability, and safety of the facilities con-
structed of demolition wastes in the future. The
economics of using these wastes in new construction
will also improve as the ability to dispose of these
wastes in landfills becomes increasing limited.
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