Opus 2020-051: Quarry Questions

Where is the dividing line between personal benefit and what is good for the country?  Often they are not the same thing.

This comes to mind because of signs I am seeing plastered on fences that warn me about the evils of a quarry that is being proposed in the area.  The signs are on what appear to be large plots of land located well out of the city.  I would guess they are 10 acres at a minimum.  These are people who moved to get away from the noise and congestion of the city and are on their private estates minding their own business.  They were thinking they were secure.  They may have worked, planned and scrimped to achieve this dream.  Then someone decides to build a quarry just down the road from them.

I thought the concern was the explosions shaking the foundations of their homes.  Vibration carries very well through solids.  I talked to someone who is certified with explosives and he said that is not the issue.  He said what they were really concerned about was the truck traffic that the quarry would generate.  Our part of Texas has its share of quarries and one day I took a back road that went by one of them.  I could see the concern.  Trucks were omnipresent and you don’t understand the amount of filth they bring with them until you drive through it.  They have a reason to be worried. 

At the same time I would bet that most of these people who are trying to stop the quarry have homes with a lot of stone used in the construction.  They want the utility and beauty of the stone but they don’t want to put up with the production.  It is the Not in My Backyard syndrom.  We see it in so many places.  As a consumer society that is concerned about the environment we have learned that we can out-source a lot of production to other countries so we don’t have to deal with the pollution.  It isn’t just the hypocrisy of the wealthy climate activists taking private jets to green conferences and owning multiple mansions.  It is also wanting golf clubs that can’t be made cheaply here because of EPA restrictions. 

For me I see the conflict in Social Security and Medicare.  I see it in property taxes.  Then there are those annoying signs that say, “School Zone, 20 MPH”.  It touches all of us in some way.

Part of the American mindset has been to sacrifice our own interests for the good of the whole and to do it because we felt it was right, not because we are coerced to it.  It is a basic ingredient in parenting.  It is part of patriotism.  It is the heart of Christianity.

The answers are not easy.  Quarry or no Quarry?  If only life were simple.

homo unius libri