A rural Maryland community lost a round recently in their fight to curb polluting industrial activity in their midst. But they refuse to give up. In July, Anne Arundel County’s board of appeals overturned a decision rescinding a 1967 approval for Westport Reclamation to continue mining sand and gravel and producing concrete in the Lothian area.
A county hearing officer in December had determined that after 55 years, little if any mining was still going on at the site. He cited evidence that the property was being used to store contractors’ material and unregistered vehicles and to dump debris, and he ordered it to cease all commercial operations.
Residents who have long complained about the concentration of mining and waste disposal activities in their neighborhood hailed the hearing officer’s ruling as vindication of their cause.
Westport Reclamation is one of several industrial operations along a short stretch of Sands Road paralleling the Patuxent River. Among the other operations are a large sand and gravel mine, two former quarries undergoing reclamation and two rubble landfills, now closed.
Read the story in The Bay Journal.