A superior court judge has dropped Alamance County from the list of defendants in a civil lawsuit that a group of Snow Camp residents have filed over the proposed development of a stone quarry in their unincorporated community.
Tom Lambeth, Alamance County’s senior resident superior court judge, issued an order on Monday that formally dismissed the claims that these plaintiffs have made against the county for its role in the quarry’s approval.
The lawsuit, which four Snow Camp residents filed last June in tandem with the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, had originally called the county to account for issuing a so-called “intent to construct” permit to the quarry’s would-be developers in January of 2018.
The suit also takes action against several limited liability corporations linked to the quarry for their alleged violation of restrictive covenants that are attached to some of the property they’ve purchased as part of the project.
In an interview with The Alamance News, Alamance County’s attorney Clyde Albright acknowledged that Lambeth’s decision has effectively pulled the county out of the ongoing court battle over the quarry.
“Our part is over,” he told the newspaper on Wednesday. “But the order is going to allow them to proceed with their restrictive covenant action.”
Albright added that the judge rendered this decision in response to oral arguments that the litigants in m this case originally presented to him on November 4. This hearing took place at roughly the same time that the N.C. Division of Energy, Mineral and Land Resources drafted a mining permit for the proposed quarry after nearly a year and a half of regulatory review. The permit allows the quarry’s developers to set up a crushed stone operation on some 322 acres off of Clark Road in the southern reaches of Alamance County.
