Proposed mining, quarry would require zoning changes

Published 5:50 pm Monday, March 26, 2018

During its meeting Tuesday, the Washington Planning Board is scheduled to discuss amending the city’s zoning regulations to allow mining and quarry operations within the city’s RA-20 zoning districts.

B.E. Singleton & Sons wants to mine sand on a parcel of land on Cherry Lane Road, which is located within the city’s extra-territorial jurisdiction, according to a memorandum from Harry Bailey, a consultant for B.E. Singleton & Sons, to John Rodman, the city’s director of community and cultural services.

Roper-based Sly Fox Farm LLC owns the land, which is on the west side of Cherry Lane Road, which has no objection to the land being mined for sand.

“The approval of the text amendment would allow sand to be mined from this parcel. The mine operator, B.E. Singleton & Sons, Inc., will secure a mining permit from the NC Department of Environmental Quality,” Bailey wrote in the memorandum. “The mining permit will contain required Operating and Reclamation Conditions. There are no dwelling or structures proposed as part of the sand mine operation and no pumping or dewatering of the excavation area will occur.”

The mine would operate from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and occasionally on Saturdays, according to the memorandum. A 75-foot (minimum) wooded, undisturbed buffer zone with an additional 25-foot unexcavated buffer zone would be maintained along the permit boundaries/property lines, according to the memorandum, which notes it appears no residential dwellings would be within 150 feet of the proposed excavation area.

The proposed excavation area would be reclaimed as a lake and all adjacent disturbed areas would be properly revegetated, according to the memorandum.

The City Council would have final say on the proposed amendment to the city’s zoning regulations.

The Planning Board also is scheduled to discuss abandoned and derelict boats in city waterways.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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