photo by: Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Commission

A map shows various phases for a proposed quarry at 1174 E. 2300 Road southeast of Eudora. Topeka-based Mid-States Materials is seeking a conditional use permit to operate a limestone quarry on 242 acres there, right near the existing Hamm Quarry.

A proposal to establish a new quarry in Eudora is up for discussion this week for the third time since November — and the quarry’s potential neighbors are concerned that they’re being retaliated against for repeatedly speaking out against it.

The quarry site, proposed by Topeka-based construction materials company Mid-States Materials, is just southeast of Eudora and right across the road from the existing Hamm Quarry. The proposed quarry’s location has drawn the ire of folks who live in Eudora’s Hesper Heights subdivision, which is adjacent to the site on the other side of East 2300 Road. One resident, Keith Turnbaugh, told the Douglas County Commission when it considered the permit last month that he and other residents were prepared to sue to delay quarry operations in the event the quarry is ever approved.

Turnbaugh spoke with the Journal-World in early February, and he said folks in Hesper Heights have been alarmed at what he described as “intimidating” actions in the neighborhood in the days immediately following meetings where they’ve voiced opposition to the quarry proposal.

For example, a representative with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to the Journal-World last week that deputies took three reports from residents in the neighborhood about tire tracks through residential yards that had appeared either overnight or earlier in the morning on Nov. 19. That was just days removed from a Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission meeting about the quarry, where it garnered blanket disapproval from the entire Eudora Planning Commission and all but two members of the Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Commission. One address suffered $125 in property damage to a fence.

And Turnbaugh added that a day after county commissioners sent the permit back to the joint planning commission at Mid-States Materials’ request last month, he found an empty ammunition box for a type of firearm nobody in the neighborhood owned near a sign opposing the quarry that had been kicked down on his own property.

That and the tire track reports were worrying enough that Turnbaugh installed security cameras on his property. He said other folks in the neighborhood are scared someone will do something to their houses or vehicles, too.

“(The) first thing I do every morning now is to check my security cameras hoping that nothing has happened,” Turnbaugh said in an email to the Journal-World last week.

Though the timing of the incidents has appeared suspicious to the neighborhood, the Journal-World has not confirmed that any specific suspect or suspects were involved or that the incidents had any relation to the quarry proposal.

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After the November and January meetings, planners and county commissioners heard dozens of comments from members of the public, the majority of which opposed the quarry. The permit itself is still on the table because the Douglas County Commission has yet to take a vote on whether to approve it. Instead, the issue is returning to the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission for further consideration of an alternate truck route to and from the quarry site.

The company’s general counsel, Rich Eckert, told county leaders last month that the company thought one of the public’s primary concerns with the plan was a proposed truck route for hauling materials that would have run past Eudora’s middle and high schools. As an alternative, the company is now offering to finance the improvement of East 2300 Road, which runs north until it hits Kansas Highway 10. According to a memo from county planning staff, Mid-States Materials is “prepared to offer to Douglas County a revenue plan for a complete rebuild of E. 2300 Road from 1200 Road to the K-10 intersection.”

The application lists other changes based on public feedback, along with the resurfaced truck route. The 500-foot blasting setback from residences is increased to 750 feet, and the application calls for cedar trees to be planted at the intersection near the quarry site for screening purposes.

But those changes don’t necessarily address concerns from Eudora planners, city leaders and residents about the city’s anticipated growth pattern — they’re expecting a major impact due to Panasonic’s $4 billion, 4,000-job electric vehicle battery plant coming to nearby De Soto — or the quarry’s proximity and visibility to the Hesper Heights neighborhood.

“The quarry seems to think it can keep giving things or changing things to get our approval,” Turnbaugh told the Journal-World earlier this month. “It will not happen. … We will keep this going forever.”

The Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Commission will discuss the conditional use permit at its meeting on Wednesday, set for 6:30 p.m. in the City Commission Room at Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St. The meeting will also be available via Zoom.