A Cumberland County woman was featured on a Knoxville TV investigative report last week claiming her property in eastern Cumberland County had been destroyed by a mining company. Judy Hawes owns seven acres of land on the eastern side of the Cumberland Plateau. Much of the property, which her grandfather once owned, lies on a bed of sandstone called Crab Orchard. Hawes told WBIR-TV her “family heirloom is now blasted into ruins after a mining company admitted to bulldozing onto her property.”  While it is true that Silvara Stone did some clearing near her property and got over into her property due to inadequate boundary markings, the blasting company says there was no blasting on her property at all.

A statement from the blasting company:

As far as the blasting goes I am the owner of the blasting company and we have not blasted on her property.  We blast well under the legal limit allowed on all our blasts to be courteous of neighbors. Silvara Stone spends several thousand dollars a year extra at this quarry to make sure it has minimal impact on neighbors.  

Silvara Stone’s owner maintains the error was accidental and, after realizing the error, offered to restore its trees and soil and that “It wouldn’t be long before we could have her portion of land we disturbed looking much nicer than it was before.”  Ms Hawes says it can’t be done and, according to company officials, refuses to even discuss the matter with the stone company.