Did you know there are eight active mines in Marion County? But, no, they’re not the sort where men wearing headlamps descend in the morning and return at night covered in soot.
The state has none of those underground mines, according to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, but instead what the uninitiated would call gravel pits or, more officially, “surface mines.” All of the active mines in Marion County are for sand and gravel. Others in the state also produce things like clay, chalk and limestone.
The topic arose because the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality Permit Board will hold a public hearing at 9 a.m. Feb. 12 at its offices in Jackson to consider eight surface mining bond release applications from four counties, including Marion.
Mississippi Rocks Inc., owned by Kosta Vlahos of Gulfport, is seeking release of a performance bond posted to cover the reclamation of 103 acres of surface mined land in Marion County, according to a public notice. The open sand and gravel pit is located southeast of Columbia on the north side of Columbia-Purvis Road. It’s also called the Forbes Pit and is near the Upper Little River.
The permit was issued in 2007 and expired in 2012, and 80 percent of the performance bond has already been released, according to MDEQ records. Companies are required to get a performance bond before they begin a gravel pit to ensure they follow all the regulations and can apply to get it back after finishing.
