Cement Plant

John J. Jones has become assistant plant manager of Lehigh Portland Cement Co., replacing Charles Moore, who is now production superintendent at Lehigh's white cement plant in Waco, Texas.Jones, a 22-year industry veteran, has worked for Lehigh since 1984. He comes to this plant from Lehigh's Cementon, N.Y., facility.A native of Emmaus, Pa., Jones resides in Westminster with his wife, Carolyn, and two daughters, Natalie and Emily.

Union Bridge residents, concerned about plans by a cement plant in their town to burn carbon waste from New Jersey as a fuel supplement, are circulating a petition calling for Maryland to ban the import of out-of-state waste.About 60 residents, who met Wednesday, hope to pressure Gov. William Donald Schaefer and the legislature to ban the practice and to stiffen state environmental standards.The residents are fighting Lehigh Portland Cement Co., which has applied for two permits to burn carbon from waste filters and to burn solvent wastes at its western Carroll County cement plant.

The Carroll County Board of Zoning Appeals determined yesterday that Martin P. Hill, son of housing developer Martin K. P. Hill, is operating an illegal business in Greenmount. After lengthy public discussion, the board found that Hill's operation of a mulch storage and sales facility in the 2600 block of Hanover Pike (Route 30) is an "illegal business" that violates county zoning laws. Martin P. Hill Landscaping has been operating the mulch business for two years at the corner of Cape Horn Road north of Hampstead.

Without a word of public comment, the Board of County Commissioners voted yesterday to pay $850,000 for farmland in Union Bridge - more than six times the property's value - to make construction of a road and railway spur possible. The motion was made by Commissioner Donald I. Dell, who played a key role in negotiations for the land. Commissioner Robin Bartlett Frazier seconded the motion, and the two voted in favor of the deal. Board President Julia Walsh Gouge abstained from yesterday's vote, though she had supported the board's decision to proceed with the deal during a closed meeting in May. Gouge and Frazier said they had objected to the price during negotiations.

A 28-year-old employee of Lehigh Portland Cement Co. in Union Bridge was taken to Carroll County General Hospital yesterday after a large piece of insulating material fell about 10 feet, hitting him on the head and neck.Richard Stine of Union Bridge was replacing bricks inside the No. 4 "clinker cooler" under a large kiln when the accident occurred, said plant manager David H. Rousch.The insulation, described as about 12 inches wide, came loose from the wall of the kiln, bounced off tubing and dropped through a hole to the cooling chamber below, Mr. Rousch said.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for highs in the upper 60s and a chance for morning showers. Lows are expected to be around 50 degrees tonight. TRAFFIC Check our traffic map for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM LAST NIGHT... Actor Kevin Bacon judges charity competition at College Park : The movie star brought his star power to a charity event Wednesday at the University of Maryland. But the cheers the actor received were not as loud as the hoots and hollers directed toward the six student groups competing for $5,000 toward their favorite causes.

Over lunch in Owings Mill in December, two pairs of business owners met to discuss a matter of mutual interest. Not depreciation schedules or benefit packages or ways to cut energy costs. Homicide is what occupied them. Matt and Tony Geckle initiated the meeting. Normally, the brothers might concede that their expertise does not extend much beyond the busy cement plant they own just north of the city. But, you learn a few things after you've killed a man in your place of business, and so they felt they had something to impart to the other two men. Kenny Der and Darrell Kifer refinish furniture in East Baltimore.

Any ordinary owner of a cement construction company would have been frustrated by 1993's long and icy winter. But not James D. Gouge.With constructing new buildings and sidewalks rendered impossible by the weather, Mr. Gouge, a 55-year-old New Windsor resident, took advantage of his free time to complete the renovations for a 9-year-old dream: the only sit-down, family-style restaurant in Union Bridge."

Federal officials issued two occupational safety citations to Lehigh Portland Cement in Union Bridge last week for failing to install an air monitoring system and having an incomplete emergency evacuation plan, plant manager David Roush confirmed.The Mine Safety and Health Administration citations stem from a Sept. 1 incident in which two people were sent to Carroll County General Hospital after breathing fumes caused by the incomplete combustion of fuel used to heat the kilns. Both were treated and released.

For nearly a century, Carroll County's smallest town has supplied stone to the massive Lehigh Cement Co. plant that employs many in the community. But the company finds itself at a crossroads — with the quarry nearly depleted, it is eyeing a new supply from a limestone-rich mine that it owns in another town. The company's plan: Construct a 4.5-mile conveyor system that would run under roads, rails and streams — and over acres of protected farmland between the quarry and the plant in Union Bridge.