Tempest

Anyone familiar with West Bloomfield, the extremely rural western NY town we live in, knows the ground immediately beneath our feet is comprised mainly of sand.
Apparently the Great Glacier, receding north after the last Ice Age, left behind deposits of sand in our area, some in heaps, some just a layer.
We found this to be true when our contractor dug the cellar-hole for our house.
It was sandy, and kept caving in.
Our back-porch was not supposed to have cellar under it, but does because a distinct foundation-trench kept caving in.
The contractor had to give up and include cellar under our porch.
West Bloomfield has a number of abandoned sand-pits.
One remains, Elam Sand and Gravel (“eeee-lum”) on Routes 5 & 20.
“5&20” is the main east-west road (a two-lane highway) through our town; State Route 5 and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road. 5&20 is just south of where we live. It used to be the main road across Western New York before the Thruway.
Elam is on the east side of West Bloomfield, and is a model operation.
It’s well-screened from its surroundings; that is, one hardly knows it exists.
An almighty tempest has arisen.
A life-long resident of West Bloomfield, Gary Evans, wants to sell his land, which is unsuitable for farming, to Elam, who will mine it.
Residents across the street are all up-in-arms.
They don’t want a gravel-mine across from their McMansions.
It’s the old waazoo. People move farther out to escape suburban blight.
And confront country reality — that rural landowners do pretty much as they please.
We’re one of those people, although in our case it was more to escape Rochester (NY).
Although I wasn’t that cognizant of it at that time.
What I was escaping was an old house that needed to be completely refurbished.
And the only way to design and build a new house was on rural land.
Land far from Rochester; West Bloomfield is about 20 miles south, and very rural.
Our land fronts a main highway, and is backed by a giant plot of land.
A while ago, the land behind us changed hands.
We were afraid of the new landowner putting in a suburban development.
I don’t think he could have accessed our main highway, so no suburban development; at least not yet.
I guess the owner is just holding it as a hunting preserve.
Developing it as a suburban development would be messy.
It’s somewhat hilly and swampy, with creeks draining through it.
(I used to walk our dogs back there — previous owner.)
But if the new owner developed it as a suburb, we don’t feel we could stop him.
After all, he owns the land.
I suppose if Elam wanted to open a mine behind us, we’d probably resist.
Even though their other mine is well-hidden.
It seems the people resisting Elam are the same people, or similar, as those that resisted a proposed cellphone tower.
Where were these people when telephone-poles were erected?
Phone-poles too are a blight!
Pardon me for saying so, but the Elam resisters are expressing the same suburban values they tried to escape.
There is concern about traffic; Elam’s heavy trucks clogging roads.
As if giant tractors don’t already do this? I bet at least six-eight farm-tractors per day pass our house — many are two lanes wide.
My neighbor across the street has a farm-field behind his house. Often there’s a tractor roaring away on it.
There also is a pig-raising operation nearby. Sometimes we get the putrid odor of pig manure.
This is the country; you expect things like that.
And people mining the sand underfoot.
If you don’t want it, you shouldn’t be living here.
What you want is Pittsford or Mendon.

• “Pittsford and Mendon” are suburbs southeast of Rochester.