Neighbours of quarry outside Fredericton living 'nightmare'

People living along the Royal Road outside Fredericton are now downwind of a new rock quarry and a dustup is stirring.

Gerry McQuinn is filing a complaint under New Brunswick's Clean Air Act against his neighbour for polluting his property with noise and dust — six days a week, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

McQuinn has lived on the Royal Road for 27 years; an area previously zoned 'agricultural-residential.' But things have changed since Mira Construction opened its new quarry next door in December 2014.

"We have to put up with this every day," said McQuinn.

"We can't enjoy our backyard. We're scared to death about what we're breathing," McQuinn says. "Is it going to kill us? Is it taking years off our lives?"

When McQuinn runs his hand along the table in front of him, it comes away gray with dust. He won't let his grandson come out to play because of it.

McQuinn says he and his other neighbours had the rock being quarried analyzed, and say it has silicone in it. That means the dust over the houses may contain crystalline silica particles, he said, which is rated "very toxic" by the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.

Crystalline silica particles have been linked to lung cancer. The particles are created when quartz is ground, cut, drilled or chipped.

McQuinn has hounded provincial environment officials, providing them with evidence of infractions he says he has documented with photographs. They eventually came over to have a look, but he says little has changed.

McQuinn has banded together with around 70 neighbours on his stretch of the Royal Road; a twisting provincial highway. All the land around them was once zone agricultural-residential. 

Their names fill a recent petition to the government on Nathaniel Purcell's kitchen table. Purcell also lives by the quarry. He says he finds it hard to sleep these days.

"We're living a nightmare.  It is a nightmare. There's no other word you can use to describe it," he says.

Purcell's view used to look out on a riding stable and a line of trees. Now it's a gravel quarry.  His house is for sale. He received one low-ball offer. He says the potential buyers asked, "What do you expect? You're across the street from a quarry."

Purcell is surrounded by mounds of paper from Right to Information requests. Evidence, he says, that suggests the decision on the gravel quarry was made before the one public meeting about the quarry.

Purcell says the documents show no studies were done about the possible effects on the surrounding area, including a salmon-bearing stream, before permits were issued.  He says residents were blind-sided. 

"Green-lighted while we were all in the dark. And we had never received any answers or courtesy with respect to the issues that we brought forward, at the Regional Service 11 meeting," he said.

"We had never been dignified with any kind of feedback on the environmental impacts of this, on the impacts on our equity, when we were suddenly going to be living adjacent to, within earshot of, downwind from, something which was belching out plumes of dust."

Purcell says even the information he obtained through Right to Information is sometimes oddly random. He picked up two copies of the same report from a Department of Transportation inspector. On one there is a warning about the safety hazards of a proposed road for the gravel trucks. In the identical report provided later, that warning is blacked out.

The road that was subject to the warning was approved.

The owner of Mira Construction didn't return calls to CBC News.

The Department of the Environment says the quarry is operating within the conditions of its approval, but the department is working with the company to address "nuisance dust issues."

Environment officials are reviewing another re-zoning application for another rock quarry down the road.

McQuinn says this isn't over.

"I am not giving up. And the people here are not giving up."