Explainer · A Hot Topic, Handled Cold
Rock quarries in Bedford County
Quarrying near Wartrace is being discussed across the county right now. Open Bedford takes no position on it. This page lays out how quarry regulation actually works in Tennessee, what the public record shows locally, and what isn't publicly documented yet — with sources for every claim.
Open Bedford is not a law firm and nothing here is legal advice. Statements about the law below are what the cited agency, statute, or court states, quoted or attributed with a link — not Open Bedford's interpretation.
How Quarries Are — and Aren't — Regulated in Tennessee
The most common assumption — that a rock quarry needs a state "mining permit" — is wrong in most of Tennessee, including Bedford County:
- No state surface-mining permit is required to quarry limestone, gravel, sand, chert, marble, or dimension stone in Bedford County. TDEC's published applicability table lists "Limestone, Coal, Marble, Chert, Dimension Stone, Gravel, Sand" as "Minerals Not Regulated" under the surface-mining permit in "All Other Counties" — every county except Shelby and Davidson (state-owned land excepted). That is TDEC's table at the link below, not Open Bedford's interpretation.
- What every mining operation does require is a water discharge (NPDES) permit. TDEC states that "all mining facilities in Tennessee require a permit to discharge water." An operation that processes rock on site — crushing, screening, sorting — requires an Individual NPDES permit; the streamlined general permit (TMSP "Sector J") covers extraction without processing only.
- Physically altering a stream, wetland, or sinkhole — culverts, crossings, withdrawals, bank work — requires an Aquatic Resource Alteration Permit (ARAP).
- Blasting is regulated separately under the Tennessee Blasting Standards Act (Tenn. Code Ann. Title 68, Chapter 105), administered by the State Fire Marshal's Office: blasters must be licensed, and blast records must be kept.
What County Zoning Can — and Can't — Do
- Bedford County has countywide zoning. Where an operation sits determines what uses are permitted there; use questions are administered by the county's Planning & Zoning office and the Board of Zoning Appeals, and a written zoning determination is a public record.
- This tract is zoned A-1. The county's own zoning layer — the data behind Bedford County's public "Zoning Machine" map — returns a single district for parcel 056 011.01: A-1. The layer's fields for rezoning date, exception, Board of Zoning Appeals approval date, and non-conforming use are all empty for this parcel. A GIS layer represents the adopted zoning map rather than being it; the Planning & Zoning office's written determination controls, and an empty field is not proof that no record exists.
- The county's Zoning Resolution addresses extraction directly. §2.190 (Borrow Pits) requires a temporary use permit — with a boundary survey, setbacks, an engineered drainage and reclamation plan, a road bond, and limited blasting hours — and its agricultural exemption is conditional, in the resolution's own words: extraction is exempt only when it is "for the sole purpose of approved agricultural activities where the extracted material will not be sold, traded, bartered, etc. to another party or person, or removed from the property (unless used for agricultural purposes on another property owned by the same owner of the borrow pit)."
- §3.280 (Mining & Quarrying Activities) appears in the resolution's Article III, "Supplementary Provisions Applying to Special Exceptions" — the category of uses that require Board of Zoning Appeals approval where allowed. Which districts allow it, and under what standards, is set out in the resolution itself (linked below).
- In February 2026 the Tennessee Supreme Court decided Tinsley Properties, LLC v. Grundy County, a case about a county resolution regulating quarry locations. In the court's own words: "we conclude that Grundy County enacted what amounts to a zoning ordinance without complying with the statutory requirements contained in the CZA [County Zoning Act]," and the court reversed the lower courts and remanded the case. The opinion is linked below; how it bears on a county that does zone, as Bedford County does, is a question for the court's own words and for attorneys — not for this page.
- Greenbelt — the Agricultural, Forest and Open Space Land Act, Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-5-1004 et seq. (linked below) — is the statute under which farmland is taxed on use value rather than market value, and it is the statute that defines rollback taxes when land no longer qualifies. What qualifies, and when rollback applies, is determined by the county Assessor of Property applying that statute — not by this page.
What the Property Record Shows: a Highway 64-E Worked Example
The community discussion concerns land along Highway 64-E near Wartrace. Property records are public; here is how one large tract in that corridor reads, from the state's assessment database (tax year 2026):
- Parcel 056 011.01 ("HWY 64-E 6015," Civil District 1): 186 calculated acres, recorded owners Howard G. Hawkins et al. / Christopher Hawkins, purchased March 2018 for $1,000,000 in a multiple-parcel sale.
- The parcel is classified agricultural, with a greenbelt recordation dated March 26, 2018 ("GB BK 12 PG 843"). Its land is appraised at $390,500 in use value against $1,846,900 in market value — the greenbelt program working as designed. Greenbelt classification is lawful and common; this documents the parcel's status, not any violation.
- The owners' mailing address on the parcel record is the same Highway 64 East address that Hawkins & Price LLC lists on its campaign-finance filings (street number withheld here under Open Bedford's personal-information policy; it is visible in both cited public records). A shared mailing address documents a connection between the parcel's owners and the company; it does not by itself document what activity occurs on the parcel.
- The permit record, and what the county said about it. Open Bedford has not
located a TDEC permit, MSHA mine registration, or county zoning action for a quarry at a
Highway 64-E location in the public indexes it can search. An absence in reachable indexes is
not proof of absence — and the public record contains statements that state permits do exist.
At the Bedford County Regional Planning Commission meeting of April 28, 2026,
Planning & Zoning Director Chris White said state mining permits are
required and had been obtained:
"Yes, they have to have a permit from the Department of Mining. … They started off without a permit from the mining department. They started off with a permit from the Division of Water Resources and they just had a water quality permit for the water discharge, and [TDEC] corrected them on that." — Chris White, Bedford County Regional Planning Commission, April 28, 2026 (video, 1:16:09)
He also described what those permits do and do not cover:"They're not licensing it. They have nothing to do with zoning. The state does not determine whether or not it can be a commercial pit or not. They're just licensing the activity." — Chris White, same meeting (video, 1:16:40)
A resident speaking in public comment at the same meeting stated that both the Highway 64 East and Fairfield Pike sites had been issued mining permit numbers. Quotations transcribed from the county's meeting video and checked against the audio. Bracketed text replaces an acronym garbled by the auto-generated captions; the ellipsis marks omitted words between two passages. Updated 2026-08-07: this item previously stated only that no permit had been located, without the meeting record above.
Campaign Finance: A Better Bedford PAC
Community discussion has repeatedly referenced a political action committee called A Better Bedford PAC. Its receipts are disclosed to the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance. The complete disclosed contribution list — every donor, treated identically — as of 2026-08-04:
| Date | Contributor (as filed) | City | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| 04/10/2025 | Marks, Amie Lee | Shelbyville | $200 |
| 08/11/2025 | Floyd, John | Murfreesboro | $10,000 |
| 08/11/2025 | Segroves, Harold | Shelbyville | $5,000 |
| 09/18/2025 | Coffey, David | Shelbyville | $15,000 |
| 09/18/2025 | Curl Properties LLC | Wartrace | $7,500 |
| 09/18/2025 | Curl Construction & Excavating LLC | Wartrace | $7,500 |
| 09/18/2025 | Hawkins & Price LLC | Wartrace | $5,000 |
| 09/18/2025 | Hawkins Asphalt Paving LLC | Wartrace | $5,000 |
| 09/18/2025 | Hawkins & Hawkins Real Estate | Wartrace | $2,500 |
| 09/18/2025 | HP Realty Co LLC | Shelbyville | $2,500 |
| 09/18/2025 | United Developers LLC | Shelbyville | $500 |
| 11/12/2025 | Obrien, Carroll | Shelbyville | $2,500 |
| 11/12/2025 | Obrien, Kerry | Shelbyville | $2,500 |
| 12/22/2025 | Fayard, Gary | Shelbyville | $5,000 |
| 03/30/2026 | Hawkins Asphalt Paving LLC (2 contributions) | Wartrace | $2,000 |
| 03/30/2026 | Hawkins & Price LLC (2 contributions) | Wartrace | $2,000 |
Disclosed totals: $70,700 in report year 2025; $4,000 in 2026 to date. Campaign contributions are lawful and publicly disclosed by design. This table reproduces the state's disclosure record in full; it implies nothing about any contributor's purpose, and Open Bedford draws no such inference. Contributor street addresses appear in the state's records and are withheld here under our personal-information policy.
What Isn't Publicly Documented Yet
Each open question below is answerable by a specific public document. As those documents are obtained, this page fills in.
| Open question | The document that would answer it |
|---|---|
| Does any Highway 64-E site hold an NPDES water discharge permit — and has TDEC received complaints or made inspections there? | TDEC Mining Section permit file & complaint log (public records request to TDEC.Mining@tn.gov) |
| Is any operation there registered as a mine with federal MSHA? | MSHA Mine Data Retrieval System entry (mine ID) |
| Is mining or quarrying a permitted use, a special exception, or neither in the A-1 district? | Article IV of the Bedford County Zoning Resolution; written determination from Planning & Zoning |
| What does the county's zoning file say about permitted use of the land in question? | Written determination from Bedford County Planning & Zoning / BZA records |
| Was a §2.190 borrow-pit temporary use permit issued for any Highway 64-E site? | County Planning & Zoning temporary use permit records |
| Does current use of any greenbelt parcel there still qualify for agricultural classification? | Assessor of Property greenbelt file / rollback determination |
| If blasting occurs, who is the licensed blaster, and what do the blast logs show? | State Fire Marshal's Office licensing & blast records |
| Is rock from the site being sold commercially? | Sales receipts, delivery tickets, or invoices (private records — reachable only if a party provides them) |
Note: TDEC's online permit dataviewers were returning errors when checked on 2026-08-04; the records-request route above works regardless.
Look It Up Yourself
Every source this page uses is public. The same searches work for any parcel, PAC, or permit in Tennessee:
- Property records & greenbelt status — Tennessee Property Assessment Data (pick Bedford County).
- Campaign contributions — TN Registry of Election Finance.
- Mining permit requirements — TDEC Mining Section (permit questions: TDEC.Mining@tn.gov, (865) 594-6035).
- Federal water-permit compliance — EPA ECHO.
- Federal mine registry — MSHA Mine Data Retrieval System.
Have a document?
Open Bedford works from documents, not tips. If you hold a record that answers one of the open questions above — a receipt, an invoice, a permit, a letter — send it to records@openbedford.org or use the "Uncover Something" box on the homepage. Documents are archived with provenance before anything is published from them.
How to Participate
Land-use questions in the county's jurisdiction run through Bedford County Planning & Zoning and the Board of Zoning Appeals; greenbelt questions belong to the Assessor of Property; state water permits belong to TDEC. If any quarry-related item reaches a published county agenda, it will appear in Open Bedford's meeting coverage automatically — that is how this site surfaces county business, and this page will link to it when it happens.