Legislator To Have Another Go At Rock Harvesting Bill

State representatives will try to rescue a bill regulating rock harvesting from a standing committee next week.

Portland Representative Mike McDonald says the bill sets modest new requirements for companies who pick up stone for building walkways, for instance. McDonald says the problem is there’s nothing keeping the companies, with mineral rights, from damaging state parks and conservation areas when collecting the stone.

“It’s decorative rock that they extract and they sell to landscapers and people like that, for fireplaces, and rock walls, and all sorts of things. But again, it’s public property, and if they’re going to destroy public property by harvesting rocks, they need to go back in and reclaim the property and restore it to its natural state.”

The bill was in the House Government Operations Committee this week. The committee is only supposed to review the bill for its bureaucratic impact before it goes to the Environment Committee.

But the Government Operations panel frustrated McDonald by adjourning rather than taking up the bill.

The two political parties blamed each other for the stall. Republicans argued the bill hampers businesses trying to operate a mineral operation; Democrats blamed Republicans for blocking the bill in committee… even though Democrats have voting control of the committee.

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Sponsor McDonald says the issue is self-evident:

“Cumberland Trail state park has minerals that the rock harvesters want to take out of the park, and all we’re asking in the legislation is that they reclaim the property. We’re not denying mineral rights, we’re simply saying, “If you extract those minerals from a state park, which is public land, then you’ve got to go back in and reclaim that property.” Right now that’s not being done, and it’s pretty serious as far as I’m concerned, because I think the public wants to preserve our state parks.”

Although the Democratic caucus vaguely blamed the Republican Party for the failure of the bill, in fact Democratic Speaker pro tem Lois DeBerry called for adjournment of the committee when the chairman, Memphis Democrat Mike Kernell, lost control of the meeting. At the time of the adjournment, members were making repeated motions to bring the matter to a vote while Kernell didn’t seem to recognize the motions.

The bill is SB4198 Kyle/HB4198 McDonald, the “Tennessee Non-Coal Surface Mining Law.”

Its financial impact was minimal – the legislative staff couldn’t even set a dollar value to it – and some industry persons said it would only inconvenience people who weren’t carrying out the “rock harvesting” in a responsible manner. House Government Operations deferred it to April 23. On the same day, Senate Environment deferred it to April 23.

The bill would apply state restrictions to any solid material or substance of commercial value found in natural deposits on or in the earth, except for coal or “borrow,” the soil or rock material dug from a nearby pit to fill or cover an earth-moving project.

Today, state mining law doesn’t apply to limestone, coal, marble, chert, or dimension stone or (in Shelby County only) gravel or sand. The bill would change the definition of surface mining to include the “extraction” of minerals instead of the “production” of minerals from a natural mineral deposit.

Meanwhile the Senate Environment Committee approved the Tennessee Scenic Vistas Act, setting a buffer strip around strip mines. The House Environmental Subcommittee had earlier voted against the bill, killing it in the lower House.