At that time, CAM claimed the company must have a permit before mining on the land because it was zoned for agricultural use. Enon Sand & Gravel claimed mining was grandfathered into the zoning.
As a result of the spat, the company sued Clark County in 2017 to get a designation to mine. The county settled with the company out of court in 2018.
Shortly after that, an acppeal was filed with the state. That case, and an additional lawsuit with CAM specifically, is still open.
“When we started this fight in 2017, the neighbors who banded together to fight this quarry had no idea that we would still be fighting in 2021,” CAM board member Kathleen Mathews said. “We thought this would be a short battle, and this certainly has not been short-lived at all.”
Paul Kavangh, a Springfield attorney who represents that group, described the ongoing cases “as running the Iron Man triathlon,” because there are so many aspects.
“We’ve essentially, in the Iron Man triathlon analogy, we’ve swam 2.4 miles but we still have to bike 114 and run 26,” Kavangh said. “We’re still kind of at the beginning of this.”
Kavangh said the legal process might take so long that “it’s possible that some of us might be dead when this is over.”
“The next step for us is to go to the court of appeals,” Kavangh said. ”That will probably happen sometime this year.”
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