When Jeff White moved to Newberry 16 years ago, he and his wife planned to stay for the rest of their lives. They used to joke that the noise from the nearby cement plant was the beach making ”a little breezy noise,” despite living two hours from the nearest ocean.
But the noise has gotten harder for the 57-year-old retiree to ignore. Along with the dust and a lack of communication from Quikrete, the company that now owns the plant, White’s grown progressively more frustrated.
Despite complaints about the noise and dust that result from the blasts — controlled explosions conducted in quarries to extract materials to mix into concrete — Newberry residents report very little change from Quikrete. But the plant’s byproducts are more than just an annoyance. Exposure to cement dust could be harming residents and their crops…