For immediate release - December 3, 2025. 

For nearly four decades—through the original 1981 Wake Stone mining permit and eight subsequent renewals and modifications—North Carolina State Parks and the public relied on two essential protections: the 50-year Sunset Clause and the undisturbed buffers measured from the top of bank of Crabtree Creek. After improper removal of those protections from the permit, and years of Wake Stone’s legal resistance and repeated attempts to block review of these issues, the Umstead Coalition ultimately secured a court decision restoring those long-standing protections for William B. Umstead State Park. Wake Stone has argued that the company was unaware of the Sunset Clause from 1981 to 2018. The public record, including detailed correspondence and negotiations over the ‘sooner’ versus ‘later’ language in 1980–1981, makes that claim extremely difficult to reconcile with the historical facts. Wake Stone accepted every one of its nine permits without objecting to those terms. Justice has been done and the Sunset Clause and buffer protections upon which we have all depended have been restored.

Background: The original 1981 Triangle mining permit application for the current quarry was denied by the State, but the denial was overturned by the NC Mining Commission. After a series of negotiations, DEQ agreed to issue the permit instead of appealing the Commission’s decision only after Wake Stone agreed to certain conditions intended to protect Umstead State Park and stipulating an end date for quarry operations in May 2031. The Honorable Rufus Edmisten, the Attorney General in 1981, confirmed that permit would not have been issued but for the 50-year Sunset Clause. In essence, the State agreed to subject the Park and the public to the quarry’s impacts, but for no more than 50 years. In March 2018, at the request of Wake Stone and without public notice, DEQ-Mining issued a Mining Permit with major modifications stripping the long- held Sunset Clause and weakening buffer protections.

The Umstead Coalition sought and achieved:

• Restoration of the 50-year Sunset Clause that Wake Stone Corporation agreed to and was a condition included in the original Mining Permit on May 13, 1981 and eight subsequent Permit Renewals and Modifications through December 1, 2017. The Sunset Clause gave the State the “right to acquire the quarry site at the end of 50 years or 10 years after quarrying operations have ceased, whichever is sooner.” (The March 26, 2018 Mining Permit Modification requested by Wake Stone changed “sooner” to “later” effectively eliminating the Sunset Clause that had been in effect for 37 years and counted upon by NC State Parks.)

• The restoration of Crabtree Creek protective buffers to be measured from the top of stream bank. Their width was decreased in the March 26, 2018 Permit by moving the protective buffers to instead be measured from the center of Crabtree Creek.

Dr. Jean Spooner, Chair of The Umstead Coalition, “We are thankful for the Court’s decision to restore the Sunset Clause and Crabtree Creek buffers on the Triangle Quarry to protect William B. Umstead State Park. These conditions were negotiated in good faith in 1981 between Wake Stone, State Parks and other State agencies at the highest level, with the clear expectation these protections would be a permanent requirement of the mining operation.”

Download a PDF of the Press Release>>

View Judge Cole's Decision (PDF)>>