Going for gold leads to rift

GOLD HILL – The lure of gold was too much for men to resist 100 years ago in Gold Hill and today it’s no different.

The drowning of eight men forced the Barringer Gold Mine to close in 1904. Now Joe Carter wants to reopen it.

The Stanly County Planning and Zoning Board will decide Monday if Carter will be able to mine for the minerals he wants on the land off Wesley Chapel Road.

Carter has requested a rezoning and conditional use permit to excavate rock and gold, as well as other minerals, from the site. According to Michael Sandy, planning director for Stanly County, there has been a large community interest in the request.

“We received a lot of written correspondence,”Sandy said.

The hearing is set for 7 p.m. Monday on the fourth floor of the Stanly County courthouse.

Carter said he wants to open the mine to gather gold, platinum and silver. The value of the minerals is roughly $100 per ton.

“Our gold mining operation is a quarry,”Carter said. But, he added, it isn’t like Vulcan Quarry.

“It’s a thumbnail” compared to Vulcan, Carter said.

He said he’s had various studies done dealing with the concerns of the citizens of the area.

“The primary concerns that the community is afraid of is all this traffic,”he said. “We have shown that we will probably impact the community at about 35 trucks a day.”

He added that Pfeiffer University is opening a charter school for about 400 students.

“That’s 800 trips if they use one per student,” Carter said.

He said if he had to compare his quarry to other quarries, he would use trucks as an example.

“There are Mack trucks and there are Toyotas ... we are a Toyota truck,” he said. Vulcan Quarry would be a Mack truck.

He said he had a study done by Dyno-Noble, an internationally recognized explosives company, and officials there said that a train passing through Pfeiffer could create more noise and more vibrations in a single pass than his entire mining operation in an entire year.

“Our total blasting time for a one week period will be no greater than 3 seconds,” he stated. “And at the property line, the noise level will not be greater than 60 decibels.”

Carter added that he has asked for the conditional use permit to guarantee that his company, J.F. Carter and Co., will only do the mining aspect of the quarry.

Still, many of the residents in the area worry that there is something that is not being said.

Willie Drye said his family has lived in the area since the Civil War.

“My parents live about half a mile from where the entrance would be,” he said.

His parents will be 84 this year and Drye said he worries about what the mine will do to their health. “My mom has emphysema and they both have allergies.”

He added that rock quarries produce a lot of dust.

“Even a small amount could have bad consequences for them,”Drye said.

“Some of the people that are in favor of this say that he should be allowed to do what he wants to.

“We’re talking about a giant hole being gouged right into the heart of this community...

“Just because you own the property doesn’t give you the right to say ‘I own this and I’m going to do what I doggone please.’ “

Drye also questions why none of the supporters of the quarry are residents of the area.

“It’s my understanding that none of the people that are proposing the quarry live on Wesley Chapel Road.

“It is hard for me to understand why so many people that don’t live in the community are so excited about this. They aren’t going to have to live with it and my parents are.”

Drye said another problem with the proposed quarry is the road it will be on. Wesley Chapel Road is a secondary road. He said it’s the standard width of a secondary road, but with all the trucks coming up and down it everyday, the residents will have to worry more.

“Aside from the dust and noise, (my parents) are going to have to live with the anxiety,” Drye said.

Joe Carter said that change is coming, one way or another.

“Change will occur, either by our hands or by someone else’s,”Carter said.

“”We’re going to move forward as far as we can. If we run up against something we can’t overcome, it will probably be turned over to developers,” he added.

A housing development in the area would be large, according to Carter. The 250 acres of land could hold up to 750 homes.

He said the noise from a housing development would be greater than his proposed quarry, as well.

Michael Sandy, planning director for Stanly county, said the public is welcome at the meeting, but comments won’t be heard. He said that comments from the community were heard at the meeting last month.

Contact Joanie Morris at 704-797-4264 or jmorris@salisburypost.com .