Area quarry awaits township approval to save business, jobs

Stories By RON BARTIZEK rbartizek@timesleader.com

DORRANCE TWP. – Hardworking men have been mining stone at this site just off of Interstate 81 ever since Earl and Tom Slusser opened Small Mountain Quarry 20 years ago. But if township officials don’t approve a plan to move its operations across the road, the business and its 150 jobs will be gone within a few years, says general manager Patrick Bartorillo.

The reason is simple – the rock will run out. To head off that outcome Slusser Brothers, the quarry’s owners, want to mine 120 adjacent acres where Bartorillo estimates the supply of rock will last for 50 years.
The ongoing controversy illustrates the often uncomfortable relationship between industry and residents in changing communities. It’s uncommon for a new shop or communications tower to draw many protests, while noisy but necessary businesses like quarries often face vocal opposition from people who may not see the economic boon a low-tech enterprise is for their neighbors, or who feel the benefits are outweighed by drawbacks.

Bartorillo, who lives in Mountain Top, points out that in addition to direct payroll, Small Mountain Quarry bought $11 million worth of goods and services from local vendors last year – everything from truck tires to bearings for the conveyors that carry raw stone to the top of crushers that reduce it to the sizes needed for specific final uses.

The business contributes in other ways, paying $64,000 last year in property tax to the county and school district and $80,000 in local payroll taxes, plus $8,000 in occupational privilege levies. Another $190,000 in payroll taxes was paid to the state last year.

The quarry’s stone is somewhat unusual in that it is top-rated by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for both wear and skid resistance. Bartorillo said more than one-third of Small Mountain’s approximately one million ton annual output is used for road surfacing. Other end uses are for backfill, driveway bases, stream lining and to make concrete.

“This isn’t a landscape-type stone,” Bartorillo said. “It’s a construction stone.”
About half the material is used by Slusser Brothers’ construction arm, ending up in projects like the Davis Street intersection in Lackawanna County or the Hazleton Beltway.

The balance is sold for $5 to $10 per ton, depending on how much work went into processing it. “The more crushing, the more expensive,” said plant superintendent Jeff Dewalt.

Both Bartorillo, 44, and Dewalt, 53, have worked at the quarry since 1996. Dewalt said he’s evidence that a blue-collar business can offer opportunities to advance.

“I started with a shovel in my hand,” said the Mifflinville resident. His strong grip and callused palms show he’s still no stranger to physical labor.

Like him, most employees are older, both because they tend to stay on the job and because it’s been difficult to attract young people to the industry.

“We have better luck with older people,” Dewalt said, which makes the work force even more skittish as they await the resolution of the company’s application to mine on new land. “They’re scared,” they won’t be able to find comparable work nearby, or perhaps at all.

Mining jobs pay relatively well; Bartorillo said the average salary at Small Mountain is around $40,000, plus $10,000 worth of benefits. That tracks with state figures, which show an average weekly wage of $854 at 254 stone quarries and mines in Pennsylvania. Jobs range from unskilled labor, to truck drivers, to engineers.

Dewalt says that while working conditions have improved, employees earn their pay.

“It’s much different (in the last few years),” he said, with greater emphasis on safety and working conditions. For instance, virtually all equipment operators now work in air-conditioned cabins. Still, “there’s not many easy jobs in a quarry. It’s pretty nice, but it’s still hard work.”

Not always pretty

There’s no escaping the rough edges of the quarry business. Explosives are used to loosen the stone, crushers are noisy, dust fills the air and a constant stream of large trucks roll in and out. Opponents of the quarry’s expansion cite all those concerns plus disruption of the water supply and silt in a nearby creek.

But Bartorillo says quarries operate under strict state and federal regulation and Slusser Brothers has a good record of compliance. And Small Mountain’s location in a lightly populated area adjacent to the highway mitigates most of the negative effects.

“It would be hard to have as little impact as this,” on neighbors, he said, pointing out that most trucks “never pass a house” when entering or leaving the quarry.

Dewalt said that if the quarry closes there will be economic damage beyond the loss of jobs, including higher construction costs because stone would need to be trucked into the area, adding about 25 cents per ton for each mile traveled. He said a vendor-operated concrete plant on the property also would likely close as well.
Slusser Brothers does not have a place to move the Small Mountain workers, Bartorillo said, because its Pittston quarry is operating at capacity.

Bartorillo estimates the present quarry will be useful for three or four more years. But he’s in a hurry to get approval on the expansion because it could take that long to gain all the needed permits, prepare the site and move equipment across Small Mountain Road.

“That’s why we’re concerned,” he said. “There isn’t much of a window.”

About half the material is used by Slusser Brothers’ construction arm, ending up in projects like the Davis Street intersection in Lackawanna County or the Hazleton Beltway.