North Aurora trustees raise concerns about quarry

North Aurora trustees want to make sure that an agreement between the village and a rock-mining quarry sufficiently addresses issues with noise and dust.

The board discussed a 20-year extension of the annexation agreement for the LaFarge Conco aggregates mine, located west of Route 25 near I-88, at a committee of the whole meeting Monday night.

The mining company will have to abide by new, stricter noise regulations adopted by the board in February, but Trustee Vince Mancini still had reservations about the hours of operation allowed.

The mine would be allowed to operate from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. A company representative said primary rock-crushing and loading of trucks goes on underground. Trucks then drive out and onto scales to be weighed, with little need to back up, which means there shouldn’t be much noise from back-up alarms, they said.

Trustee Mark Gaffino wanted more specific assurances about controlling dust generated by the mining and crushing of limestone and dolomite. Company representatives said a new dust-control system was installed in October. Whether it works better than the previous one should be evident when work increases this spring with the start of construction season, company representatives said. The village’s community development director said village law does not specify a maximum particulate count at which dust is considered a nuisance; he will ask the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency if it has standards.

The new agreement extends the company’s ability to continue mining within a 65-foot setback area near the property’s edges, where mining was previously prohibited. It requested, and got, permission to start doing so two years ago.

The company is also interested in mining under the ComEd right of way on its northern and eastern edges, but that will not be addressed in this agreement.

The company expects it could continue mining the 90-acre site for another 40 years.

Mancini was also concerned about a plan by the City of Aurora, in which another of the company’s mines sits, to possibly store lime sludge in that mine when mining ends. The Aurora mine is connected to the North Aurora mine, and the company plans to install stoppings to prevent the sludge from leaking into the latter. The sludge would come from the city’s water treatment plant.

The new extension of the agreement would now also prohibit placement of commercial billboards on the site for off-premise businesses.

The village board will vote on the matter at its March 21 meeting.