More than 20 residents of Piney Grove and Galestown blame explosions from a nearby quarry for damage to their home’s foundations, and met to discuss their issues during a town forum at the Piney Grove and Galestown Community Center Thursday.
The event, spearheaded by resident Yolanda Steele, created a forum to express their frustrations with Vulcan Materials Company, who many blamed its nearby mining operation for costly damages to their homes.
“After fixing up the house prior to moving in, we noticed a lot of cracks … As the years went by, it got worse and worse, bigger cracks, floors that were shifting, holes in concrete. Just recently, we noticed there was a big hole,” Steele said.
While explosions from the quarry had become a natural occurrence for Yolanda, and her husband Curtis, said last week a large explosion shuddered their home, then they felt a much larger explosion underneath them. Looking to see the extent of the damage, they discovered a large hole in the northern wall and sections of their brick wall half-buried in the ground, as if shot out by the home. With the second floor sagging, Dry-Pro Foundation and Crawlspace Specialists made emergency repairs at a cost of $20,000.
“The one thing the guy said that really blew my mind was ‘I’ve done thousands of houses, all over the world, and I’ve never seen this before. Never.’ That’s what he said. The only way you’ll see something like that is in a basement … This is definitely coming from the shifting of the ground,” Steele said.
In previous conversations with Vulcan, the company informed her that studies done by the company indicated explosions related to mining operations were not strong enough to cause damage to foundations. Steele contends an individual explosion may not be strong enough, but constant explosions over time lead to ground shifting. Following Thursday’s forum, Steele and her husband toured multiple homes in the area with significant foundation issues, likening what happened to the homes to sifting rocks from sand.
“We don’t have enough money to fight them, and they are a big corporation. That’s Vulcan, Vulcan Materials is doing the damage to our home … Before me, [the Piney Grove and Galestown community] really got the blasting. I really just got here, but they had been talking with them for years before I stepped in. I’ve gotten nowhere. From an attorney standing in my office telling me it’s scientifically not their fault. That their houses are settling. I’m depending on you guys (the media) to help us,” Steele said.
Steele was far from alone Thursday with many residents saying the explosions have become an endemic part of daily life. From knocking hanging photos to the ground, causing costly repairs to churches they attend and even having to keep a close eye on children and teens, who wander too close to the Vulcan operations or hazards resulting from the operations, life in Piney Grove and Galestown is far from the idyllic community they envision it could be.
“I can hear the rocks in the air knocking into each other. I can see the dust in the air. The dust comes over on my car, and the noise. We constantly get the noise from the machinery. They are in my backyard. I can hear the machines first thing in the morning. They haven’t built a barrier wall to protect from the sound,” Curtis Steele said.
Many in the community do not believe Vulcan Materials Company is solely to blame. They also reached out to county and state officials for assistance with no success. With much of the community being lower income laborers and farmers of African descent there is a slight hesitation in calling it racism, but a firm accusation of area leaders having no interest in preserving Richmond County’s rich history of African American agriculture and communities.
“This is home. That’s my personal opinion, I do (believe it is a race issue). They already told us, face [it] we have deep pockets. We can’t compete with them. It is what it is,” Henry James Everett Jr. said.
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