CROSS – Nearly two dozen Cross and Eutawville area residents began picketing Martin Marietta Materials’ Berkeley Quarry last week, vowing to continue the protest until they get answers from company officials about payment for property damages they attribute to the blasting of limestone rock at the quarry.

“Until they come forward, we’re going to keep protesting,” said Robert Ravenell of Cross, president of the informally-organized Concerned Citizens of Cross.

“We’re going to keep on until they decide they can give us some good answers. We were going to stop Friday, but since they’re ignoring us, we’re going to keep protesting,” Mary Wallace of Cross said.

In 2003, Circuit Court Judge Markley Dennis of Moncks Corner ruled that a class-action lawsuit brought against Martin Marietta by hundreds of area residents was fair. In the settlement, Martin Marietta agreed to pay $1 million to be distributed among property owners with eligible claims, also known as “past claims” as defined in the 24-page settlement.

The settlement came after years of residents complaining about cracked driveways and foundations, discolored or “rusty” water, sinkholes and other property damages that could be attributed to the blasting of limestone rock at the Martin Marietta quarry in Cross, an active quarry for at least three decades.

Protesters say the $1 million settlement has been allocated but not fairly.

“Some of the people who got money shouldn’t have gotten money because they live out of state … and they just got property (land, not structures),” Wallace said.

Attorney Dawes Cooke of Charleston, the 2003 court-approved settlement administrator, told The Times and Democrat Thursday that “any property owner (within a five-mile radius of Martin Marietta) was entitled to make a claim … “ However, he said very little money has been awarded to landowners. He said he received a total of 675 “past claims,” but some of the claims were rejected.

Cooke said the $1 million settlement fund was depleted last year.

As part of the settlement terms, Martin Marietta agreed to annually replenish the Future Claims Fund with a maximum of $100,000, “contingent upon the company having sufficient funds generated from five cents per ton of annual sales” at the local quarry, he said.

From 2003 until April 2009, Cooke said he collected the “future claims” filed by Cross area residents, but protesters say they haven’t been duly compensated for those “future claims” (meaning new damages allegedly caused by Martin Marietta’s quarry work since the 2003 settlement).

Martin Marietta is now handling the “future claims,” says Paul Dominick, a Charleston attorney serving as legal counsel to the company.

In a prepared statement, Dominick said, “Future Claims must not be repetitive of prior claims, must be accompanied by supporting documentation and must be to compensate for damages caused by the Martin Marietta operations.

Dominick wrote that since taking over the claims process, “Martin Marietta has been working with class members to gather the appropriate documentation to support their Future Claims. All Future Claims will be reviewed by Martin Marietta within 60 days from Aug. 26.”

He noted in the statement that since the settlement was reached in 2003, “Martin Marietta has gone beyond the requirements of the settlement agreement and spent a significant amount of time and money in the Cross community drilling private wells and filling small holes on residents’ properties without regard to whether the Martin Marietta operations impacted the properties.”

The attorney said Martin Marietta “will continue to work with the class members and their counsel in the administration of the Future Claims fund.”

Protester Carolyn Davis of 1467 County Line Rd. maintains that Martin Marietta has not kept its promise to the community.

Davis said her roof leaks, her yard contains numerous sinkholes and she’s been forced to purchase bottled water for 33 years because of the “rusty water” produced by her inadequate well. She said Martin Marietta previously dug a new well for her but “it didn’t work.”

“When the people blast at the quarry, pictures fall off the wall” of her home, Davis said.

“I haven’t received any money from them. My septic tank has sinked in, and I don’t have good water yet,” she added.

Davis noted that prior to the development of the rock quarry, she didn’t have any problems with her well and she wasn’t faced with constant home repairs.

J.W. Garrett, who lives about a mile from the Martin Marietta site, said when the quarry began operating about 35 years ago, “it didn’t take them long to do the damage.” The blasts at the quarry “feel like earthquakes,” he said, adding that “a lot of people’s wells went dry” when the quarry work began.

Orangeburg County Council Chairman Johnnie Wright Sr. visited with the residents who were picketing in front of the quarry Thursday morning. He said the protesters invited him to the site.

“We’re certainly appreciative and realize the value of industries in Orangeburg County and what they contribute to our county in jobs and resources,” Wright told The Times and Democrat. “But citizens have their rights also in the democracy we live in to voice their opinions if they felt they were not treated fairly.”

Dominick reiterated, “We’ve tried to assure everybody through direct correspondence and phone calls that we’re going to abide by the settlement agreement, and that’s what we’ve done.”

T&D Correspondent Martha Rose Brown can be reached by e-mail at marfawose@aol.com. Discuss this and other stories at TheTandD.com.

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