The Metropolitan Planning Commission has voted 6-0 to deny a request for a conditional use

permit to allow a former rock quarry on Munson Road to be reopened.   Jim Didas wants to use the site to obtain rock for project on Fort Riley and in the local area.

Area residents are opposed to the idea, citing concerns ranging from dust and noise to the fear blasting could contaminate their water wells.  A spokesman for the residents Craig Paxton spoke to the MPC. “When this quarry was briefly opened in 1965 there were only two homes on Munson Road and the surrounding area. First time dynamite was used it caused the wells for both homes to cloud, rendering the water unfit for consumption. Fifty years later there is a much larger community surrounding the old quarry with homes and wells less than a thousand feet from the site.

A spokesman for Didas, attorney Vernon Jarboe asked the Planning Board if applications for zoning, or in this case a conditional use permit, were going to be approved based on whether or not neighborhoods like the idea how many would get approved? “Almost none. Because nobody wants anything except what they like in their back yard.”

The MPC recommendation now goes to the Geary County Commission, who will make the final decision on the conditional use permit request. Right now the issue is scheduled to go to the County Commission D