By BRUCE MILLER | Goshen, Ind.
Having just returned home to Goshen, Ind., from your beautiful neck of the woods in Wilton/Ontario, I want to weigh in on the Mathy quarry issue. Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate what you have when you live next to it every day. But do please listen to the frequent visitors who marvel at the abundant natural beauty of your countryside and the local treasure which is your Elroy-Sparta State Trail. I’ve been on it many times and feel appreciation for it every time I bike our own Pumpkinvine Trail here in Elkhart and LaGrange counties of northern Indiana. It’s a 17-mile railroad-bed conversion trail that was inspired by your own Elroy-Sparta, which with its uniqueness still invites and inspires tens of thousands of visitors per season.
As I read the County Line’s coverage of the Mathy quarry issues over the last months, I have to wonder, are local residents truly paying attention to Mathy’s own acknowledgement of up to 100 huge gravel trucks a day crossing the trail at Logan Road? Their admission that with this huge undertaking not a single new local job is to be created? That this dusty scenario will play out not over five, 10 or 20 years, but maybe 50? Really? Not to mention concerns about the high-capacity well they have proposed and the periodic blasting necessary for gravel and stone extraction.
Gravel quarries are necessary, yes, but not at this location.
Granted, I’m agitated just thinking about it here where I sit 400 miles distant. Coming your way again soon to bike the Elroy-Sparta will likely help my state of mind. But thinking of a possible denial, or at least postponement, of permitting of the quarry by the Monroe County Zoning Committee on Monday, March 16, would make this frequent visitor even more happy. Your own calls or letters of concern to them before the meeting, or presence at it, would also help.
