Wake Stone takes up fight to continue mining next to Umstead State Park
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Judge ruled mining permit expires in 2031; DEQ said it wouldn’t appeal.
- Judge Elkins allowed Wake Stone to intervene; it then moved to appeal.
- Case hinges on 1981 sunset clause, 2018 change, and revised 2023 permit.
The legal battle over the stone quarry next to William B. Umstead State Park is far from over.
A Wake County judge put the quarry’s future in doubt when he ruled in December that the state mining permit expires in 2031. It appeared that ruling might stand when the defendant in the case, the state Department of Environmental Quality, said it would not appeal the decision.
But a different Superior Court judge allowed the quarry’s owner, Wake Stone Corp., to intervene, giving it the power to appeal. Judge Adam Elkins agreed that the company had a great deal at stake in the case and that the state agency was no longer looking out for its interests.
A few days later, Wake Stone’s attorneys filed a motion to appeal. The outcome of the case could determine whether the company can continue mining next to Umstead State Park indefinitely and expand the operation with a second pit on adjacent property leased from Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
At issue is a “sunset clause” in the 1981 permit that allowed Wake Stone to open the Triangle Quarry. The clause effectively ends mining by 2031, by giving the state the right to acquire the quarry site at no cost “at the end of 50 years from the date quarrying commences or 10 years after quarrying operations have ceased without having been resumed, whichever is sooner.”
Wake Stone did not contest the clause at the time, and it remained in the permit for 37 years, through several renewals and modifications.
Then in 2018, Wake Stone asked state mining regulators to change the word “sooner” to “later,” postponing the state’s ability to acquire the property until 10 years after mining is finished. The company made the request by email, calling the change a minor correction to an error that had simply been overlooked.
State regulators agreed.
The Umstead Coalition, a park advocacy group, sued the state in 2022, seeking to have the sunset clause restored. The case was first heard by Judge Donald van der Vaart at the N.C. Office of Administrative Hearings, who ruled in favor of the state Division of Energy, Mineral, and Land Resources, the agency within DEQ that handles mining permits.
The Umstead Coalition appealed to Wake County Superior Court, where Judge Sean A. Cole reversed van der Vaart’s decision. Cole said Wake Stone had made a “backchannel” effort to avoid public scrutiny for what was a major change in its permit.
Company says it expects to win on appeal
Wake Stone, which is now owned by Vulcan Materials, has not yet filed its appeal, but it has asked the court to put Cole’s ruling on hold while the appeals process plays out. The company says it has “made significant financial investment” in preparing the RDU property for mining, including construction of haul roads, sound walls and a bridge across Crabtree Creek connecting the site with the existing Triangle Quarry operation.
The company says it expects to win its appeal. It argues that the question about the sunset clause is moot because the state issued a new permit for the quarry in September 2023 with language that allows the company to mine stone indefinitely.
It also falls back on an argument it has made for years that the change to the sunset clause in 2018 reflects the original decision of the state Mining Commission in 1981. The Umstead Coalition has made the case that state officials altered the permit language after the Mining Commission’s decision to make a controversial mine more politically palatable.
For its part, the Umstead Coalition has contested Elkins’ decision allowing Wake Stone to intervene in the case. The group’s lawyers say that under state law only an aggrieved party may intervene in an appeal of a decision by the state Office of Administrative Hearings. Wake Stone “got exactly what it wanted” from van der Vaart, the lawyers wrote, and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to enter the case now.
This story was originally published February 11, 2026 at 12:18 PM with the headline "Wake Stone takes up fight to continue mining next to Umstead State Park."
