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Batesville asphalt plant on track for 2005
Residents are glad to be out of a sticky situation
BY C. RICHARD COTTON
DBJ Contributing Writer
Becky Curtis can breathe a sigh of relief - and rest easy
that she’ll literally be able to breathe easy.
Curtis and her husband Jeff faced the possibility of having
an asphalt mixing plant next door to their home on Shiloh
Road, just south of Batesville and less than a mile east
of I-55. The property owned by Memphis-based paving company
Lehman-Roberts was also near a subdivision whose residents,
Becky Curtis says, were not aware of the potential industry
locating on their doorstep.
“There are a lot of low-income, minority folks out
here,” said Curtis. She estimated about 90 houses
are within a short distance of where the plant was to have
been built.
Panola County Land Development Board clerk Diane Stewart
said Lehman-Roberts made application to locate the plant
on the Shiloh Road property but final approval of the Panola
County Board of Supervisors has not been granted.
“Our board approved it and sent it to the Board of
Supervisors,” Stewart said. Discussion would now be
moot, according to Jerry Perkins, president of the Board
of Supervisors.
Lehman-Roberts has purchased a 100-acre tract where it already
operates a gravel pit through its sister company, Memphis
Stone & Gravel. An existing, but outdated asphalt plant
already there will be replaced with a new, more efficient
plant.
Hal Williford, president of Memphis Stone & Gravel,
said plans for the asphalt plant are still in the formative
stage; he expects to spend more than $1 million to put the
new equipment in. “We’re putting in a new or
a used drum-mix plant,” Williford said, indicating
the Lehman-Roberts operation could be run on previously
owned equipment. “We’re looking at all options
right now.” Williford said it’s likely that
additional office personnel would be employed at the site.
Perkins said the long-time owner of the land where the gravel
pit has operated on a lease for the past couple decades
decided to sell the tract, located three miles southwest
of Batesville on Farrish Gravel Road. That decision to sell
was the deciding factor to build the new plant near the
gravel pit. “The company didn’t want to invest
a lot of money on something they didn’t own,”
said Perkins. “I was in complete shock that they did
an about-face and decided to put the plant at a place they
already have a gravel pit,” Curtis said. She initiated
a petition, gathering 126 signatures from her neighbors
in opposition to the proposed plant.
Curtis said she was upset that the county’s Land Development
Board rezoned the land from agricultural to industrial with
no notice to any residents in the area that the issue was
pending. A sign posted on the property was how she discovered
it was in the works; Curtis said the board ran legal ads
announcing the proposed rezoning but she admits that she,
and apparently her neighbors, don’t look at that section
of the local paper. Williford said his company plans to
have the new plant up and running “for the 2005 paving
season,” less than year from now. Replacing the old
plant was a necessity for Williford “because it was
basically wearing out.”
Perkins said the Lehman-Roberts paving plant is the only
asphalt mixing operation in Panola County. And, while the
Curtises are breathing their sighs of relief, Perkins admits
he is, too. He feels like a particularly sticky and controversial
situation was defused with Lehman-Roberts’ purchase
of the gravel pit tract. “Everybody is happy, especially
me,” Perkins said with a laugh. DBJ
