The recent history of the effort to stop the Blue Ridge Concrete Plant started with a unanimous victory in front of the Board of Adjustment where the Board found unanimously that the Concrete Plant would be an environmental disaster based on eight of eight separate environmental criteria: Click here for the news article “Wrong Place Wrong Time”.

The actual minutes of the Board of Adjustment Hearing may be found here .

Following that victory, Blue Ridge Concrete appealed their defeat to the NC Superior Court. The Superior Court judge found in favor of the community and against Blue Ridge Concrete.

As the community celebrated, a separate court found that the County had only provided 19 days public notice (instead of the required 20 days). Based on this technicality, they threw out the underlying zoning that had required Blue Ridge Concrete to get a conditional use permit. Based on this legal finding, the concrete company appealed again and the Judge ordered the County to give Blue Ridge Concrete a building permit since (based on the prior legal decision) there was no underlying zoning at the time they originally applied for a permit. Details may be found here

What could be our last hope of stopping the plant, Blue Ridge Concrete has to apply for and receive an Air Quality Permit .