MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Content Editor
Posted: Sunday, February 7, 2010 6:50 am

Rutherford County’s Board of Commissioners will meet in behind closed doors during its regular monthly meeting Thursday night.

The commission’s Public Works and Planning Commission asked for an executive session with County Attorney Jim Cope to update the group on an outstanding lawsuit and separate complaint against the Murfreesboro-Blackman Quarry.

“I don’t think we should talk about this in an open meeting,” County Mayor Ernest Burgess said at the Public Works Committee meeting. “We’ll discuss these issues with the county attorney.”

Burgess was concerned that any discussion of the ongoing litigation could weaken the county’s case.

The county is currently in a lawsuit with the Rogers Group asking Chancellor Robert Corlew to rule on the best course of action regarding a discrepancy in the zoning resolution.

And Murfreesboro resident and neighboring landowner Avent Lane filed a complaint in December with the Rutherford County Building Codes Department against Rogers Group, the quarry’s parent company, for allegedly violating its permit.

Lane contends Rogers Group has violated the quarry’s permit conditions by mining rock at a greater depth and working after approved hours.

“We go along for years and things start to get worse and worse and worse,” he said at the time.

The quarry was originally opened in the mid-1980s after the Tennessee Supreme Court ruling forced the county to approve a conditional-use permit for Stone Man to begin excavating at the quarry on Burnt Knob Road.

On the original site plan, Stones Man is given the authority to quarry up to a depth of 60 feet from the existing elevation between the hours of 7 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Lane said Stone Man closed the quarry when it reached 60 feet below the ground surface, but then the ownership was transferred to Rogers Group, which has quarried the pit to 380 feet deep, 80 feet below the water table. And the quarry works past 5 p.m.

Commissioner Ron Williams, whose district abuts the quarry, asked for an update on the complaint from County Codes Director David Jones.

Jones said he has met with representatives from Rodgers Group, but hasn’t scheduled a site visit next to determine the depth of the quarry.

Burgess added the County Attorney’s office has been researching the company’s building permit and the State Supreme Court ruling that led to the quarry’s opening in 1985.

To complicate matters more, the county is currently in litigation with Rodgers Group about a setback requirement for resource production and extraction (Section 7.03 of the resolution). In the current resolution, quarries must be set back at least 1,500 feet from surrounding homes zoned Residential 100, R-40, R-20, R-10 and R-8.

But the homes surrounding the Murfreesboro-Rutherford County Rock Quarry are all zoned R-15, as is most of the unincorporated county.

With the discrepancy and a vocal opposition from the Blackman community, the commission decided it was in the county’s best interest to take the evidence to a judge for a declaratory judgment, which would decide whether the zoning resolution applies to the R-15 setback and if it setback applies to the Rogers Group conditional-use permit request.

“We went into court because it wasn’t clear to any of us really, exactly which of these zoning resolutions was in control or properly approved for us to make the correct decision,” Burgess said.

Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or at mwillard@

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