Blasting Quarry Operations: Adverse And Cumulative Effects, Lawsuits And Complaints, And Suggested Remedies

Breaking rock for road construction, installation of infrastructure or for extraction typically involves detonation of explosives. Any time explosives are detonated there are undesirable impacts on the environment and its inhabitants, which are always more severe in populated areas of significant human and non-human activity. The primary focus of this paper is on the impact that blasting quarry operations have on the environment and its inhabitants. A number of civil cases, investigations, published articles and press releases documenting the adverse and cumulative effects of blasting rock are presented, discussed and analyzed. The extensive number of documented cases and media reports of the adverse and cumulative effects of blasting quarry operations on the environment and its inhabitants shed light on the gas lighting strategy employed by the aggregate industry and their explosives engineers to alter the public’s perception of reality by consistently and repeatedly claiming that blasting within regulatory limits cannot cause structural damage and that the vibrations felt from blasting are no more than a minor inconvenience. Gas lighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which the abusers, in this case the aggregate industry and its explosives engineers, attempt to sow self-doubt and confusion in the minds of their victims, and to mislead approval authorities and cause them to question their own judgment and intuition from a practical non-theoretical perspective. The research conducted supports reducing Peak Particle Velocity (PPV) to a maximum of 2 mm per second measured along the entire perimeter of a blasting quarry operation, combined with a permanent onsite 500-metre setback and offsite minimum separation distance of 1,000 metres from incompatible land uses to minimize damage from structural response to ground vibrations and airblast (concussion), and to eliminate or reduce substantially lawsuits and complaints from residents exposed to the adverse impacts of blasting. None of the adverse effects prohibited under the Ontario Environmental Protection Act are permitted to impact public or private third-party properties beyond the boundary of an existing or proposed blasting or non-blasting quarry operation.