Love thy neighbour
Taking a pro-active approach to developing good relations with nearby residents is essential and reaps multiple rewards.
by Kelly Parker
Generally speaking, laypersons have a good grasp on the temporary inconveniences and noise involved in the expansion of housing in their neighbourhood, or in the construction of a building. But the notion of a pit or quarry nearby tends to bring out the NIMBY in people – the “Not in My Backyard” mindset.
That’s why working on good neighbour and community relations can go such a long way toward ensuring the smooth operation of an aggregate site. It’s about maintaining positive relations while simultaneously countering misconceptions, educating those who are leery, and enhancing a company’s reputation as an asset to the community.
For many, the first image that comes to mind when learning that a quarry will be operating nearby is a big, ugly hole forever replacing the present beautiful wilderness. Of course, that’s unavoidably going to be the case for a short time, but it needs to be communicated that it is just one part of an evolving process that ends with a complete site rehabilitation.
“Part of your plan for every site is your final rehab plan,” explains Cindy McCarthy, manager of transportation and compliance for Miller Aggregates. “A lot of those sites are turned back to agriculture, or become a water feature like a small lake, and might eventually be surrounded by residential homes. If we’re here for 50 or 100 years, I know it feels like a long-term use, but your children or grandchildren might be buying a house on a little Miller Lake.”
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Also important at the outset is engagement with Indigenous communities, stresses Chris Breen, vice president of government and community relations at Walker Aggregates. Breen notes that his firm will reach out and set up agreements with Indigenous groups to fund their participation. On-site, they’ll walk the land together and set up an archaeological monitoring program to determine if there is anything that is culturally significant on that land, and in turn that process may help in their efforts to trace their history.
With an eye to the future, notes Breen, “we gain a lot of help from (Indigenous) communities with their traditional knowledge of the land, which comes in handy with quarry rehabilitation plans. At one point when the quarry is mined out, you want to return it to nature, and [you want to have] somebody who understands that land, who understands the features of the land, what grows well, what are the truly native crops, and how the wildlife likes to interact with that land. That’s an area that’s absolutely critical to not just Walker, but our industry in general.”
Neighbours rightly have concerns about how the daily operations of a quarry will affect them, both aesthetically and practically. Those reasonable issues can be addressed in a number of ways. McCarthy notes that Miller surrounds its quarries with earthen berms and tree blinds to conceal operations as much as possible.
Unfortunately, however, there can be a downside to this approach. “People then get an idea that we’re trying to hide something behind our berms,” she says. “So we open the gate and invite people in to come on in to see what’s going on, and we’ll explain our processes.
McCarthy emphasizes that an open-door policy at its quarries is key and constant. “Anytime someone wants to come in this door and have a tour of the quarry to see what we’re doing, we’ll have the operations manager and a site superintendent pop them into the truck, drive them around, and just show them what’s going on here,” she says.
Walker has a similar policy, and also hosts community gatherings on-site. “We’ll do a summer barbecue and a holiday gathering each year,” explains Breen. “These are opportunities for people to just show up at the quarry. The summer one in particular is quite popular because we’re at full operation and people can actually see quarry activities. The kids like to come and touch the truck and all that kind of stuff, and then we’ll do a barbecue lunch. It’s a good opportunity for people to be able to ask any questions very informally, and to give any feedback that they want.”
Breen says those events are supplemented by regular newsletters and other targeted communication, both through direct mail and occasional advertising in local media when there’s anything new happening at the quarry.
The robust communication can also help to illustrate how local aggregate operations can benefit the community. “Sometimes people forget or underestimate the importance of having a local aggregate source close to construction sites,” notes Breen, adding that a local quarry can point out the advantages of close-to-market aggregate versus trucking it in from a distance. “They sort of say, ‘Yeah, I get it.’ We don’t need higher costs of anything these days and we all need to do a better job with taking care of the environment.”
McCarthy is adamant that any aggregate firm going into a new community should make setting up a public engagement committee their first priority. “That’s really going to give you traction because you make yourself transparent and it gives you a conduit to the community,” she says. “People who are concerned can talk to that committee, and I think it really makes a difference.”
“Our neighbours understand the importance of quarries for building housing, schools, hospitals and roads,” adds Breen. “They also understand that having a quarry in their neighbourhood means that they are making an extra contribution, that they’re really stepping up with their neighbourhood to help build our communities. It’s critical for us then to be in touch with them proactively all the time, to keep the lines of communication open and support initiatives that are important to them.”
DAY-TO-DAY OPERATION
Regarding the day-to-day operation of the quarry itself, and any inconvenience it may cause neighbours, dust mitigation tends to be a priority. Miller recently purchased a piece of equipment that atomizes mist to capture and drop dust. It also employs a full-time
employee whose only job is to drive a water truck around the quarry and up and down the road outside the gate to suppress dust. Miller also spreads a layer of calcium chloride a couple of times a year for the same reason.
Many, if not all facilities have extensive traffic studies attached to them as part of the licensing process, because this too can have an impact on nearby residents. “Those [studies] make sure that we pick the best route to support the heavy trucks that are coming in and out of a quarry,” says Breen. “That includes traffic rules and a lot of signage to remind the drivers what those rules are. We have a 25-kmper- hour limit inside our quarries to keep things safe and to keep dust down. We also employ retired police to help us enforce and monitor safety to make sure that the roads leading in and out of the quarry are safe for everybody in the community.”
The same berms that improve the view for quarry neighbours also help with noise, directing it upward instead of outward. Walker also puts rubber linings in its equipment to soften the noise when rock gets dropped into big containers on the back of trucks. It covers a lot of its stationary equipment and installs insulation inside to dampen the sound.
“Another thing that we do,” says Breen, “is when we have to blast, we only do that at midday, so no one’s in bed asleep, or at night when they’re home trying to have their dinner. We do it at midday because that seems to be the best time for folks and has the least impact on their day. Some people also like to get a phone call or a text before a blast just to remind them it’s going to happen, which we’ll do.” Walker also foregoes blasting on windy days to control dust.
GIVING BACK
As with any business – but particularly in an aggregate operation that might experience more community resistance – community involvement is of paramount importance, and both Miller and Walker try to lead in that arena. They financially support community activities, sports leagues and charities, and they get their boots on the ground in the community whenever possible.
Miller sponsors a local soccer team every year with the Miller name on the players’ uniform, and it is front and centre at an event the league holds each season for sponsors. “One of the ladies here at the office made up a table,” details McCarthy, “took some of our products there to show, had a few little contests and a few little activities, and we just made sure we were there.”
Prior to the pandemic, the local historical society would hold a big annual event; Miller was present there as well. “We’d bring the old Miller truck and have a couple of people there to talk about it to show it off,” says McCarthy. “It’s that next step-up to engagement, as opposed to just financially supporting these things.”
McCarthy points to a recent tree planting day as another example of Miller’s efforts in the community. “I think we did about 300 [trees] that day,” she recalls. “These opportunities show that we are doing the right thing for the environment. Bringing out the community to help and be with us made it a good day.”
Walker Aggregates too is heavily involved in community initiatives and charities. “Habitat for Humanity is a big one for us, so we donate both employee time and building materials,” notes Breen. “I think we worked on six different builds in Niagara, Grey and Bruce counties in 2023, and that was done by allowing employees time to go and actually do the construction, and also through donations of aggregate and other related materials to the projects.
The company gives every employee two paid days off a year to volunteer in the community, in whatever way appeals to them. Giving them this flexibility lets every Walker employee consider how best they can help and interact with the people living in region. “They can do pretty much whatever they want. That’s good because it gets the ball rolling, gets people focused, gets people thinking about where they want to do their volunteerism, and many of the employees then end up offering more of their own time to that organization,” Breen says.
By engaging in all of these efforts, stresses Breen, “these folks become our best advocates. Nothing says that we’re doing a good job with what we’re doing like a happy neighbour. We can say what we want, as much as we want, but when a happy neighbour is expressing that, it’s a really good indication for us that we’re doing the right thing.”
Perhaps trumping the desire to be a good neighbour and responsible corporate citizen is the fact that the people who work at the quarries are often community members themselves. “We’re neighbours. We’re people who’ve been born and raised here, too,” says McCarthy. “We’re just trying to make a living and do it in the most professional, most environmentally friendly way that we can, because we care about this stuff too, just like they do.”