A plan to create a sand mine in North Carolina may have taken a step closer to becoming a reality recently when a Superior Court judge dismissed a community group’s appeal of the decision to grant a license to the business behind the scheme. The judge dismissed the business litigation on fairly technical grounds. He ruled that the appellants failed to name the permit holder, Buie Lakes Plantation LLC, as a defendant as required by law, thus invalidating the appeal.
Bui Lakes was granted a permit to mind sand on a 125-acre plot of land in Robeson County in July 2012. The company says that the operation would include constructing a $22 million processing facility to clean the sand. The new business would create 36 jobs earning an average annual salary of about $44,000, Bui Lakes says.
But a group of community activists made up neighboring property owners objected to the permit. The plaintiffs say that the proposed mine would damage their property values and may pose a health hazard. The group appealed the county Board of Commissioners” decision on the grounds that it illegally rezoned the property with restrictions that it does not usually make in similar situations.
The group has 30 days from the date of the dismissal to appeal. The county attorney says he will ask the judge to require that the plaintiff group post a bond before filing an appeal due to the potentially substantial economic losses that Bui Lakes and the county will endure during another appeal.
Source: Fayetteville Observer, “Judge rejects bid to deny permit for Robeson County sand mine,” Ali Rockett, Feb. 20, 2013