Residents challenge Prince George's over concrete plant

With an asphalt plant, a recycling transfer station and a clay-mining operation down the street from his home, Thurman Jones Jr. hears dump trucks in his sleep. He sees dust on his car. And he occasionally smells an indescribable stench near the community center.

If that weren't enough, the Prince George's County District Council voted last year to allow a developer to build a concrete plant a block away from Jones's home in an unincorporated area known as Cedar Heights, a small working-class community just outside Fairmount Heights and Cheverly.

"It is just overwhelming that they keep compounding the problems in this African American community with these negative facilities," Jones said. "It's really devastating."

But Jones and five other residents from Cheverly, Fairmount Heights and Seat Pleasant challenged the council's decision to allow the developer to build the plant, putting the construction on temporary hold. Now they're waiting for Prince George's Circuit Court Judge Thomas P. Smith to decide whether the council acted properly when it granted a special zoning exception to American Resource Management Group to build the Marvaco Concrete Batch Plant. The plant's former site was displaced by Nationals Park. Smith did not set a date for his decision.

Jane F. Barrett, director of the University of Maryland Environmental Law Clinic, which represents the residents, argued before the District Council last year and in court in September that the community has been overburdened by the facilities there. Barrett said the applicant defined the area that would be affected too narrowly and underestimated the increase in noise and traffic.

The site on Sheriff Road where American Resource Management Group wants to build is zoned industrial, but zoning rules require the District Council to approve a special exception if another plant wants to build in the area.

Barrett said the law also requires the council to consider existing conditions in making it decision.

"If you look at where the construction will be built and the impact on the surrounding neighborhood, it will impose burdens on the community that are above and beyond what they should be exposed to," she said. "To add another layer on would be unacceptable."

Thomas E. Haller, an attorney for American Resource Management Group, said this week that his client's application should be judged on its merits, "not on the failings" of other industrial plants in the area.

He said his client is doing everything it can to work with the community, including designing the building so it doesn't look like a concrete batching plant. All the mixing will be done inside the facility, so no dust will be created outside, he said.

"We know the concerns they had from the other facilities, so we responded to those concerns," Haller said.

Del. Joanne C. Benson (D-Prince George's), who supports the residents' efforts, said the council disregarded their testimony. Residents complained of respiratory problems. One man needed oxygen. A woman lost her voice.