Rock crushers finish pounding for Wal-Mart

Rock crushing machinery blows rock dust into the March air at the Entel Rock Quarry. After blasting rock out of a 40-foot deep hole, tractors hauled the rubble up to the conveyor belt where it was smashed into three-inch sized rocks.

Construction workers March 29 hauled out their last loads of rock from the Entel Rock Quarry north of Colton for construction of the new Wal-Mart in Pullman.

DeAtley Construction has cut out 4,000 to 6,000 tons of gravel a day for the past three weeks, then loaded it on trucks to Pullman. Roughly 78,000 tons were removed to be used for the construction at Wal-Mart.

The gravel was used to fill in sewer lines and the store foundation, as well as to build up retaining walls, said a spokesman for Albright, the construction company working on Wal-Mart.

Tons of dirt taken out to construct the mega-store have been dumped at the quarry. Heaps of this dirt can be seen from Highway 195.

The Wal-Mart site is on Bishop Boulevard, across from the Safeway.

Since March 3, DeAtley company equipment has worked at the quarry just off 195 near Colton.

One construction foreman described all of their equipment as one big “portable rock crusher.”

The array of machinery includes several gravel-hauling tractors, a rock-crushing conveyor belt, and a “jaw-crusher,” a machine which begins the crushing process.

“A loader brings it up out of the pit and throws it into the crusher,” said Pete Bonner, DeAtley foreman for the project.

Construction workers began removing the rock by blasting at the bottom of a 40-foot deep pit at the north end of the site. They blasted twice in three weeks for the amount of gravel they needed. Rock on the site is basalt.

“They had a guy come in and shoot it and drill it,” Bonner said.

Next, tractors spent their days scooping the blasted rock out of the pit and hauling it up to the rock-crushing machinery. Their machinery is capable of crushing rock to two inch or three inch measurements.

DeAtley has also applied to the county for a permit to build an asphalt batch plant at the Entel quarry. DeAtley, which has leased the quarry from Steve Redinger since 1999, would lease out the site to an asphalt company.

Two concerned couples showed up to the county’s asphalt plant permit hearing March 25 to complain they had not been notified plans for an asphalt batch plant were on the table.

County Planner Alan Thomson pointed out residences within 1,000 feet of a rock crushing facility must be notified of action and residences within 300 feet of an asphalt batch plant must be notified. This is why some people who were advised of the rock quarry were not advised of the asphalt plant proposal.

At the March 25 hearing, the Board of Adjustment decided to inform all residents within 1,000 feet of the potential asphalt plant.

A decision on the permit to DeAtley will be decided at a later meeting.