Sand Gravel

A top state environmental regulator is expected to testify on behalf of Harford County tomorrow when a zoning hearing continues on Spencer Sand & Gravel Inc.'s plans to resume surface mining next to its closed rubble landfill in Abingdon.The company is contesting a county zoning administrator's decision last fall to block a state permit that would have allowed the mining operation to expand.County Attorney Nancy Levy Giorno said she will call Edward Dexter, chief of the Solid Waste Compliance Division of the Maryland Department of the Environment, to testify about the history of the Abingdon company under state environmental regulation.

The Navy has received a half-dozen expressions of interest in the Naval Academy's dairy farm property, including proposals for a sand and gravel mine and an organic farming operation, in addition to the horse park plan put forth by the Maryland Stadium Authority. Navy officials sought outside interest after the stadium authority designated the 857-acre Gambrills tract last fall as its preferred site for a proposed horse park. A Navy spokesman declined to identify the six parties that have expressed interest, but four of them confirmed their responses to The Sun. Warren E. "Cookie" Halle, head of Silver Spring-based Halle Enterprises, confirmed that he responded to the Navy's request.

A deal that would have a Laurel-based quarry company buy the asphalt-making and road-construction business of Reston, Va.-based Lafarge Corp. is taking longer to complete than insiders in the local road-construction business had expected.Industry sources say Laurel Sand & Gravel has outbid a consortium of local contractors to buy the assets, which Lafarge acquired last year when it bought Towson-based Redland Genstar Inc. as part of a $690 million deal. Lafarge put the asphalt plants and road-paving business up for sale last fall because they did not fit with Lafarge's core mining business -- and because they put the company into direct competition with customers who bought its sand and crushed stone, ingredients of concrete or blacktop for roads.

Community opposition to Arundel Sand & Gravel Co.'s plan to expand the operations of its rock quarry near Havre de Grace is growing as the company seeks zoning approval from the county. Harford County's zoning hearing examiner held a public hearing on the company's request for a special exception of its zoning permit last week. Six more hearings are scheduled before the end of next month. "The activity is picking up and the opposition seems to be growing," said Valerie H. Twanmoh, a Bel Air lawyer who serves as the people's counsel.

Spencer Sand & Gravel Inc., owner of a rubble landfill closed by the state more than three years ago, has been cited by the Maryland Department of the Environment for operating without a permit.The company, which was forced to cease operating its rubble landfill in August 1992 after repeated infractions, also was cited Sept. 19 for operating an open dump. Other accusations in the citation are accepting illegal waste, creating a potential environmental risk and operating a natural-wood waste recycling facility without a permit.

With what sounded like a muffled thunderclap in the distance, 25,000 tons of rock crashed to the ground yesterday afternoon in a billowy cloud of dust near the banks of the Susquehanna River. It took less than a second, and thousands of people cheered. It's not every day that one gets to see 14,700 pounds of explosives shear the side off a stone wall. "I used to camp out here, do some hunting and fishing and climb the cliffs when I was a young," said Bob Einwachter, 69, as he videotaped the bulldozers, barges and stone crushers spread out along 600 acres of a stone quarry in Havre de Grace.

The county Environmental Affairs Advisory Board deferred a sand and gravel corporation's request yesterday to be excused from planting trees under the county forest conservation ordinance.The board deferred action to give officials of Laurel Sand & Gravel Inc. time to find out whether the ordinance applies to the company's plans.The ordinance does not apply to projects that disturb less than 25,000 square feet, said James E. Slater Jr., the county environmental services administrator.Laurel Sand & Gravel plans to install a transfer station in Finksburg to store stone that will be brought in by rail from its Woodsboro quarry, then loaded onto trucks for delivery.

A recent article about Spencer Sand & Gravel Inc.'s landfill in Abingdon misstated the number of chemical drums illegally dumped on the property in 1980 that were labeled "trichloroethylene." Only one of the 75 drums was so labeled, according to a Harford County Health Department inspector's report.The Sun regrets the error.

Members of the Harford County legislative delegation have asked the state to look into the possible health hazards to area residents of a proposed change in mining operations at the Arundel Sand & Gravel Co.'s big quarry off Interstate 95 near Havre de Grace. In a letter mailed Monday, nine of the county's lawmakers asked the Maryland Department of the Environment to respond to residents' concerns about potential air-quality degradation and elevated incidence of lung cancer in the Havre de Grace area before awarding the company a requested modification to its mining permit.

The county Environmental Affairs Advisory Board deadlocked yesterday over whether to give a sand and gravel company a variance from tree law requirements, then asked company officials to take another look at whether they really need such a variance.Laurel Sand & Gravel Inc. deferred its variance request last month to determine whether the county forest conservation ordinance applied to its plans. The Laurel company plans a transfer station in Finksburg to store stone to be brought in by rail, then loaded onto trucks for delivery.

Members of the Harford County legislative delegation have asked the state to look into the possible health hazards to area residents of a proposed change in mining operations at the Arundel Sand & Gravel Co.'s big quarry off Interstate 95 near Havre de Grace. In a letter mailed Monday, nine of the county's lawmakers asked the Maryland Department of the Environment to respond to residents' concerns about potential air-quality degradation and elevated incidence of lung cancer in the Havre de Grace area before awarding the company a requested modification to its mining permit.

Samuel Streett Bevard Jr., a retired partner in a Prince George's County sand and gravel company, died of congestive heart failure Saturday at Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park. He was 73 and lived in Dunkirk. Mr. Bevard was born in Baltimore and spent his early years growing up on Clifton Avenue. In 1941, he moved with his family to Camp Springs and graduated in 1946 from Surrattsville High School. He attended the University of Maryland before enlisting in the Navy in 1951, serving for years as an aviation mechanic,.

With what sounded like a muffled thunderclap in the distance, 25,000 tons of rock crashed to the ground yesterday afternoon in a billowy cloud of dust near the banks of the Susquehanna River. It took less than a second, and thousands of people cheered. It's not every day that one gets to see 14,700 pounds of explosives shear the side off a stone wall. "I used to camp out here, do some hunting and fishing and climb the cliffs when I was a young," said Bob Einwachter, 69, as he videotaped the bulldozers, barges and stone crushers spread out along 600 acres of a stone quarry in Havre de Grace.

A deal that would have a Laurel-based quarry company buy the asphalt-making and road-construction business of Reston, Va.-based Lafarge Corp. is taking longer to complete than insiders in the local road-construction business had expected.Industry sources say Laurel Sand & Gravel has outbid a consortium of local contractors to buy the assets, which Lafarge acquired last year when it bought Towson-based Redland Genstar Inc. as part of a $690 million deal. Lafarge put the asphalt plants and road-paving business up for sale last fall because they did not fit with Lafarge's core mining business -- and because they put the company into direct competition with customers who bought its sand and crushed stone, ingredients of concrete or blacktop for roads.

The state Department of the Environment has scheduled an informational meeting at 6: 30 p.m. today on a request for a permit for a sand and gravel mine on 46 acres between Patuxent and Conway roads in Odenton.The meeting will be in the lobby conference room of Tawes State Office Building, 580 Taylor Ave., Annapolis.Representatives of National Waste Managers Inc., the company applying for the permit, will explain their proposal. Public comment will be invited.Information: 974-3874.Pub Date: 6/03/96

In their first attack on Kingdon Gould's proposal for a quarry in Jessup, opponents submitted to the Howard County Board of Appeals last night more than 40 pages of environmental charges filed against the developer's Frederick County quarry from 1989 to 1994.Included are charges of dust and air pollution, and damage to wetlands against Gould's Barricks quarry in Woodsboro, which is run by his Laurel Sand & Gravel Inc.Residents who have dubbed themselves the Stop the Quarry Coalition fear similar problems if a quarry is allowed in their community.

A member of Carroll's environmental advisory board says he wasn't soliciting customers for his landscaping business -- just offering to provide professional advice -- when he approached representatives of a corporation that was seeking a variance from the county's forest conservation ordinance.Kevin E. Dayhoff, who owns a Finksburg landscaping business, gave his business card to an environmental consultant for Laurel Sand & Gravel Inc. after the Nov. 30 Environmental Affairs Advisory Board meeting and suggested that the consultant call him.County Attorney Charles W. Thompson said the county's ethics law doesn't address such business contacts, but he suggested that the county could provide better orientation programs for board members.

Zoning hearings on Spencer Sand & Gravel Inc.'s request to resume surface mining next to its closed rubble landfill in Abingdon will be restarted tomorrow night in the Harford County Courthouse.Owners of the controversial mining and rubble fill business are contesting a 1994 decision by the county zoning administrator requiring them to obtain a special exemption to resume mining activity in what today is a largely residential area.Attorneys for the family-run sand and gravel business have argued that the Spencers are "intensifying" an operation that existed before Harford County even had a zoning code.

Godfrey Larry "G.L." Stancill, who began a sand-and-gravel business out of a bushelbasket and donated his services to build a Havre de Grace sports complex that bears his name, died Friday of heart failure at his home near Joppa. He was 83.Mr. Stancill was president of his company, Stancill's Inc., until the mid-1980s and still tended some real estate, said a son, Larry G. Stancill of Joppa. Several sons run the business, which has offices in Bel Air and its primary pit in Perryville.Born in Tarboro, N.C., Mr. Stancill left grade school to chop cotton and pick tobacco.

A top state environmental regulator is expected to testify on behalf of Harford County tomorrow when a zoning hearing continues on Spencer Sand & Gravel Inc.'s plans to resume surface mining next to its closed rubble landfill in Abingdon.The company is contesting a county zoning administrator's decision last fall to block a state permit that would have allowed the mining operation to expand.County Attorney Nancy Levy Giorno said she will call Edward Dexter, chief of the Solid Waste Compliance Division of the Maryland Department of the Environment, to testify about the history of the Abingdon company under state environmental regulation.