Residents blame quarry trucks for crumbling County Road 120

CONNIE SWINNEY • PICAYUNE STAFF

TOBYVILLE — When David Holmes built his home in 2010 in Stone Mountain, he believed he had found an idyllic corner of Burnet County — until a new rock quarry operation moved into the neighborhood about two years later.

“We didn’t think too much about it until we started noticing there was some significant truck traffic that started to increase on County Road 120,” Holmes said. “We started noticing the pit was getting a whole lot bigger.”

Holmes lives about a mile from the Collier Materials’ Toby mining “pit” in an unincorporated community known as Tobyville, which straddles FM 1855 (Fairland Road) and FM 1980 (Tobyville Road). The two state roadways are connected by a four-mile stretch of CR 120.

A handful of his neighbors joined Holmes at a Burnet County Commissioners Court meeting April 27 to express concerns about the quarry’s sand and gravel delivery trucks they contend are responsible for damage along the two-lane county road.

“His trucks are literally destroying the road,” Holmes said. “The county is maintaining the road. The patches are just that. It’s not anything substantial. You can patch it, and the next day, the patch is driven out. County Road 120 needs to be widened. It needs to have the same kind of surface, subsurface, road base as 1855. It’s wider and very substantial. If we’re going to continue to use 120 for Collier’s truck traffic, it needs to be upgraded to handle that.”

Burnet County Judge James Oakley told DailyTrib.com that the infrastructure failed to keep pace with a growing industry.

“A lot of these county roads just evolved,” Oakley said. “It was an old road 100 years ago. It was lucky 50 years ago to get a little tar and gravel on them, so they wouldn’t get muddy in the rain. When you have situations like this where they’re really getting used beyond what they’re capable of handling, the road surface begins to deteriorate.

“There’s really not enough right-of-way to work with, so it’s just an issue that frankly falls back in our hands to address,” Oakley added.

Burnet County Precinct 1 Commissioner Bill Neve said he met privately with citizens along with hearing to their concerns in the public meeting.

“First, they wanted me to stop the trucks from going down the road. It’s a public road,” Neve said. “Then, they wanted Collier to put up a bond (funds) to use the road. You can legally do that, but I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to single out one of the companies around here and punish them.

“They already pay taxes, and they pay for an overweight permit to drive on the roads, but the state keeps the money,” Neve added.

Holmes said he believes the county should require Collier to pay for more substantial road repair and safety upgrades.

“The road is narrow. The trucks, basically, at many times, will cross over into the other lane, just in order to make sure they don’t fall off of the edge of the road,” Holmes said. “What we’re concerned about is to prevent accidents. It needs to be upgraded to handle that heavy loaded traffic.”

The Toby quarry, just off FM 1980 and CR 120, was an expansion in operations for Collier within a few miles of the company’s primary pit on FM 1855.

“We’re not trying to shut Collier down,” Holmes said. “We’re the little guys fighting a big corporation. It’s a safety issue. We don’t like it, but he’s operating within the law.”

Oakley said he believes the voters as well as the county might eventually play a role in finding a solution to the road maintenance problems in Precinct 1.

“Does it have to be addressed? I guess the answer is ‘no.’ Should it be addressed? Yes,” he said. “What we probably need to look at is prioritizing some of the highest needs and doing a study to see what it would take to bring those up to a higher standard than they are — not necessarily a (Texas Department of Transportation) standard and all the different criteria that’s involved with their blueprint —  but come up with a cost estimate. And maybe we can consider putting it up for a bond election and see if voters would get behind it.”

connie@thepicayune.com