Nearby residents say the project has scarred their community. Rocky Ridge's spokesperson says the company is in "a weird place" and unsure of what to do next.
TOLEDO, Ohio — The trucks have stopped rolling, the excavators have stopped digging and the dust is finally settling from a fight between south Toledo residents and Rocky Ridge Development.
But those residents haven’t forgotten the damage, they say, was done by a mining operation in the middle of their community.
“I don’t appreciate the fact that you have to look at it every time you go past,” said Delores Bates, who lives on Butterfield Drive, just north of the mining operation on Angola Road.
The homes on her road and nearby Acton Drive are caked with the dirt from the neighboring property.
“We never had that problem before. We never had that problem. I just don’t feel like they should be in a neighborhood like ours or any neighborhood,” she said.
Toledo City Council agreed. On Tuesday, it refused to rezone the main Angola parcel and two others to general industrial, a requirement for Rocky Ridge to continue mining.
For the last several years, the company was digging sand and clay out of the property at 4004 Angola Road and replacing it with spent lime from Toledo’s water treatment plant. It signed a contract in December 2023 to do the work, but was doing it illegally in an area zoned residential. That contract expires this December, but no one is sure if the company will be allowed to complete it.
“It’s a weird place to be at the moment. We haven’t seen a wind-down plan,” said Jeff Lutz, a spokesperson for Rocky Ridge. “We were optimistic we were going to get the change. As it is, we’re working our way through it.”
South Toledo resident Bill Hoag, who was one of the leaders in the opposition movement, said he saw heavy activity at the site on Thursday, including dumping of material, but there was no work seen on Friday afternoon. Lutz described the Thursday activity as “restoration work.” But on Thursday morning, a notice of noncompliance, signed by Josh Lewandowski, the zoning compliance manager with the Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commission, was posted at the property.
All along Angola, yard signs spell out the anger of residents and the controversy has not been lost on outsiders.
“My biggest concern used to be the dust and chemicals, but now it's property values. I just lost a sale on a house on the other corner of Mercer and Weston,” said Hoag, who said there are concerns about future lawsuits in the area. “The lawyer come out and he said, ‘Bill, I'm sorry, but I ain't touching this.’”
For now, Rocky Ridge still has a contract with the city to dispose of the spent lime from its water treatment plant. They also have permits from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. Lutz said the company isn’t sure what it is supposed to do next. 11 Investigates was told there would be some kind of plan forthcoming from council, but none has been seen so far.
But Bates and Hoag think the first step should be the company removing its footprint from the area.
“They should be in an area where there is no traffic or not a lot of traffic,” Bates said. “I do not appreciate them taking over an area where there’s a lot of residents. They should be in an isolated area.”
Hoag said he has been in contact with developers, hoping they’ll buy the property, but he also said he’s provided options to Rocky Ridge.
“There are over 60 sites that we’ve sent to them, that they could buy outside the city limits. It should be an area where there’s not a large population, maybe one or two farmers and a long distance from property,” Hoag said. “Nobody would care so much out there. Take it out there, where it don’t affect the citizens or destroy the roads.”