Quarry Project Sparks Heated Public Meeting

Developers presented their case for filling an abandoned quarry with construction debris at a packed public meeting last night in Bellevue.

The Newsom Pointe Reclamation Project will fill the 140-foot quarry with construction debris and then transform the site into playing fields and a group of townhomes. But the landfill needs an exemption from a state law which mandates that no landfill can be built within two miles of a scenic river.

Most attendees at the meeting last night opposed the landfill for fears it will pollute the Harpeth River located roughly 500-feet from the quarry. The two sides don’t agree on whether there’s actually water exchanged between the quarry and the river. Project investor Crom Carmichael says the quarry is too deep to affect the river.

“The bottom of the Harpeth River is 22 feet higher than the bottom of the rock quarry, so what we did is test the water in the quarry and we tested the water in the river to see if there were common elements and there aren’t.”

Carmichael, in justifying the site is currently being used as an illegal dump site, acknowledged that run-off from this garbage could already be going into the river. Harpeth River Watershed Association Director Dorie Bolze says the developers haven’t done a study and need to asses the impact on groundwater as well.

“The winter time is the time to do it because the water table’s high after all the rain from the winter, cause ultimately, if you build a landfill, you need to have your landfill above where the groundwater comes up the highest in your rock so your landfill doesn’t sit in the water.”

The bill creating the exemption from the 2-mile limit for this quarry hasn’t yet moved out of a house subcommittee.