Friday, March 29, 2002
Want Tar With That Air?
And the Newberry city commission decided to allow Watson Construction to build their asphalt plant in town. Eventually Watson plans to build a cement batch plant on the site as well. I understand that these are necessary industries, especially in a get-up-and-go society such as the United States, but does it really have to be one mile from downtown? I mean, Newberry's borders extend for five or six miles in every direction. Legally, there was nothing to be done; the land was zoned for industrial purposes, so that's the way the cookie crumbles. However, a small chance of overturning; one of the city council owns an auto repair business that has done $5,000 of work for Watson in the past two years, and he did not recuse himself from the voting. That could overturn the decision in court. I hope.
One has to wonder though. With all the outcry we hear about the existing Florida Rock cement plant, which is a couple of miles out of town, why then did only 600 of 3,300 residents sign the petition against the cement plant? Kristin and I didn't, becuase we did not hear about it until it was too late. How many others did this happen to?
------------------------------------------------