It is always good to see people willing to lend a helping hand. That was the case Thursday as members of the South Fulton/Fayette Community Task Force met with residents of the Buffington Road area who are living with damage to their homes and concerns about health from their close proximity to the Red Oak granite quarry.

Buffington area residents Yvonne and Chuck Armstead, Anne Callahan and Che Renfro explained the nature of the physical damage to their homes from heavy blasting at the quarry site. Damage includes cracked foundations, exterior wall separating from the structure, broken water and gas pipes, interior walls separating from floors, sagging windows and ceilings, bathroom and kitchen floors cracking or splitting, bulging walls, cracked driveways, cabinets, pictures and other items falling from walls during blasting and the anxiety experienced by adults and children resulting from the constant blasting, they said.

“The blasting is unbelievable and the damage is, too,” Yvonne Armstead explained, expressing concerns over the help so often requested of local and state government, help that was never forthcoming. “And there is a fine dust everywhere. It’s so heavy that you can scoop it up. We feel like we’re living in a bunker in Iraq.”

Helping task force members to visualize the force of the blasts, Callahan said a 150-pound dressers full of clothes was actually rocking around on the floor during one of the blasts. The Buffington-area residents said their complaints sometime result in company representatives coming to their homes, always providing an explanation that falls short of addressing the real problem. But the problems is real, said Chuck Armstead, for the thousands of residents in the quarry’s blast zone.

“You and your kids are breathing that stuff,” said task force science committee chair and Peachtree City resident Lois Speaker, responding to descriptions of the granite dust so prevalent in the affected Buffington Road neighborhoods.

Task force Chairman Connie Biemiller and the nearly one dozen members at the meeting said they would assist Buffington residents in developing a health questionnaire and a petition form for their next community meeting. Several task force members will also attend the meeting.

“We want to help you open the door,” Biemiller said in response to finding a viable resolution to the years-long problem. “If you are going to take on the fight, take it on and don’t compromise.”

Also attending the meeting from Tyrone were Councilwoman Grace Caldwell, Councilwoman Gloria Furr, Patsy Couch and Mike Caldwell. Caldwell said she was interested in the south Fulton residents’ concerns since Tyrone is home to two quarries. Furr shared that interest, noting unsubstantiated claims by some in the community that a quarry was being planned for Peachtree city.

“Stop The Blasting” community meeting will be held Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. at Burdette Road Gymnasium.

Residents of south Fulton and Fayette counties formed the community task force in mid-2006 after chemical emissions at the Phillip Services Corp. waste treatment plant on Ga. Highway 92 near Fairburn sickened more than 700 people from Union City and Fairburn to the north to Tyrone, central Fayette and Peachtree City to the south. Persistent efforts by the task force under Biemiller’s leadership led to awareness of the issues by state and local governments, the move by Fulton County Commissioner Bill Edwards to refuse to renew the company’s permit to discharge wastewater into the county’s sewer system and the shut down of most of the treatment activities at the plant.

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