Waite Park grapples with granite’s role

Granite has been a constant presence for as long as Greg and Carol Mick’s dairy farm has been in the family — more than a century.

It’s lying beneath the fields and jutting up from the ground in craggy outcroppings. It’s a valuable commodity — and also an unyielding obstacle, making it tough to farm, build a house or drill a well.

“When you look at the rock out there, how do you put any type of development through that?” Greg Mick asked. 

Mick and some of his neighbors on the southern edge of Waite Park have watched as the fast-growing St. Cloud suburb expanded into once-rural countryside. 

Now, they see a potential win-win: Allow a mining company to extract the granite for the next five to 10 years, leaving the land ready to be developed. 

“We have an opportunity here to do something with this property,” Mick said. “And if you look around here, there’s rock all over.”

But the landowners have encountered a different obstacle: concerns over mining’s impacts.

Amid an influx of new requests last year, Waite Park adopted a temporary ban on mining to consider new limitations.

“We have to look longer term than the property owner that stands to benefit immediately,” said Jon Noerenberg, Waite Park’s planning and community development director. “We have to look longer term and more holistically about what’s good for the community at large.”

Granite has lured mining companies to Waite Park since the late 1800s. Companies such as Cold Spring Granite and Martin Marietta blasted and carved out massive amounts of granite and sold it across the country for buildings, monuments and grave markers.

Over time, many of the rocky quarries the mining companies left behind filled with water.

Next to Micks’ property is Quarry Park and Nature Preserve, where dozens of quarries pockmark the forest and prairie. The park attracts more than 100,000 visitors a year, who hike, bike, cross-country ski, fish, rock climb or scuba dive. In the warmer months, they plunge off rock ledges into the chilly water below.

Locals have been using the quarries as swimming holes since mining ended in the 1950s, said Ben Anderson, Stearns County’s parks director. The county bought 220 acres from Cold Spring Granite Co. and opened the park in 1998. 

“For people to see the value in a site like that and turn it into what it is today was pretty cool to see,” he said. 

Scattered throughout the park there are remnants of mining’s heyday, including massive discarded rock piles and two resurrected derricks, the large machines used to hoist granite blocks.

Preserving granite outcrop prairie

Eventually, the park expanded to encompass 683 acres, including a scientific and natural area managed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. 

Both the DNR and Stearns County have expressed concerns over the proposals for new mining near the park. Quarry Park and the surrounding area is a sensitive ecological area home to threatened and endangered species, including a rare orchid and prickly pear cactus.

“I think our interest is in preserving granite outcrop prairie to the greatest extent possible, because that is something that we are in danger of losing,” said Melissa Collins, regional environmental assessment ecologist with the DNR.

Upland habitat doesn’t have the same legal protections in Minnesota as wetlands do, Collins said. She said it’s important that any mining project coordinates with the DNR to minimize environmental impacts.

One proposal being considered is to prohibit new mining within 1,000 feet from Quarry Park. The irony is not lost on Anderson. 

“We’ve got this amazing asset that was created by the granite mining industry,” he said. “And then to have those conversations about potentially not wanting to see them directly adjacent to what created this great asset.”

But he worries that noise and dust from blasting and mining operations could harm the park and its users. 

“It’s not that we’re against mining in general,” Anderson said. “We just need to have some conversations about what that may or may not look like.”

Property rights

Some property owners say a 1,000-foot setback would severely restrict mining on their land, or even prevent it altogether.

“That’s just beyond infringing on property rights when you can just say, ‘Well, we're going to take your property.’ It’s basically what they’re doing,” said Jeff Johnson, a Waite Park landowner. Johnson operates Johnson Materials, the mining company that hopes to extract granite from several properties.

The latest requests for mining are mainly concentrated on Waite Park’s southern side. They’re seeking to extract granite to be crushed into aggregate, which is used mainly in road construction.

The property owners agree that Quarry Park is worth preserving. But they also say the park highlights the potential value of old quarries that are given a new life.

Ralph Fedor got a 10-year permit to mine granite on his Waite Park property before the moratorium. He points to examples of creative re-uses of quarries in Minnesota, including the Cuyuna Lakes mountain bike trails near Crosby and an underground research lab in a mine near Soudan.

“The possibilities are almost endless,” Fedor said. “You just have to open your mind.”

There’s another local example: a music venue called the Ledge, which opened in 2021. Waite Park built the outdoor amphitheater on land donated by mining company Martin Marietta. It’s surrounded by piles of cut granite and offers visitors a view of a tranquil water-filled quarry.

The amphitheater had roughly 50,000 attendees in 2022, its first full year of operation, It hosted national acts, including the Beach Boys, Bonnie Raitt and Sheryl Crow. 

“You see the history of the mining and you see the history of all the rock,” said Shaunna Johnson, Waite Park city administrator. “And you can see it in a whole other light, and being used in a whole different way.”

State bonding and local sales tax revenue paid for the $11 million amphitheater. City officials expect an $8 million to $10 million economic boost annually in the form of increased demand for local restaurants, bars and hotels.

“We’re drawing people from the metro area. We’re drawing them literally from all over,” Johnson said.

Balancing act

But even as Waite Park reaps the benefits of the mining industry’s past, officials also are struggling to figure out how it fits into the city’s future.

After some property owners expressed concerns, Waite Park officials agreed to reconsider changes to the city’s mining ordinance and extended the moratorium for another 120 days to gather more input.

Johnson said the city is trying to figure out how to allow some property owners to extract granite and have options for future development, but also maintaining some of the more rural area’s beauty.

“That’s where I think the city is at right now is just trying to find where that balancing act is,” she said.

• St. Paul mayor declares state of emergency for trash collection
• When the world is underwater, what will we save? A new dystopian novel explores the answer
• Earthquake rocks Thailand and Myanmar, triggering the collapse of a Bangkok high-rise
• Egg shortage prompts more backyard chickens, but bird rescuer cautions prospective owners