Stop the Quarry at Highland Ridge Farm

We are fundraising on behalf of Stop the Quarry LLC, founded by Tiverton residents, to stop the lawless industrial activity happening at Highland Ridge Farm.

What's going on? Since September 2022, Highland Ridge Farm has been jackhammering and crushing rocks, every day for hours on end. It then sells the rock under the name Highland Ridge Granite.

This is an outrageous assault on a peaceful residential neighborhood. The noise regularly exceeds the legal limit of 60 decibels, even a quarter-mile away.

The quarry threatens:

--> Livelihoods: Working from home has become intolerable.

--> Property values: Who wants to buy a house next to a quarry?

--> Our health: Even well-regulated quarries generate harmful dust that can cause silicosis, asthma and lung cancer. But this is not a well-regulated quarry. Highland Ridge Farm is already facing enforcement actions by the RI Department of Environmental Management for not treating stormwater discharge.

Why do we say this quarry is illegal? The owner describes the property as a "quarry and aggregate producing operation" -- but Highland Ridge Farm has no quarry license and the land is zoned as residential (R40) and protected farmland. That's why it's been slapped with five cease-and-desist orders by the town, orders which it regularly violates.

All Highland Ridge Farm has is a temporary gravel removal permit from 1974. It says this permit is still valid because gravel removal has been occurring continuously since then, which means its right to remove gravel is grandfathered.

That's the claim, anyway. But there's not much evidence to back it up. Longtime neighbors never heard any gravel being removed before about 2022. Aerial photos going back decades don't show much, either. And the land records are largely silent about gravel removal. In other words, the 1974 permit has long expired. And it never allowed for the kind of industrial-scale excavation that is happening now, anyway. That's why this quarry is illegal and must be shut down.

So what is the money for? Funds will go toward retaining a lawyer, maintaining a website (stopthequarry.org), and printing leaflets and signs.

Together, we can stop this illegal quarry!