The plan by Memphis Stone & Gravel Co. to start a 200-acre mining operation in the rural Eureka community has created quite a ruckus.

And it ain’t over yet.

After the county land commission turned it down in May, Memphis Stone has filed an appeal to the Panola County Board of Supervisors.

The county board is set to hear that appeal Monday morning in Batesville.

Our supervisors may delay a vote until later, but I predict they will vote to overrule the land commission on this premise: the two land owners should be able to use their land however they wish, which includes selling their land, and the quality gravel buried beneath it, to Memphis Stone.

If supervisors elect to run with that argument, then they should also vote Monday to disband Panola County’s zoning laws.

I’m serious. The premise of a zoning law is that some of your neighbors, left to their own ambitions, would start a goat farm in the middle of Dogwood Hills.

Some neighbors could care less about your property values, or your children’s safety, if they can make a buck.

The issue at hand is a textbook example, wherein two landowners stand to earn a substantial sum for selling pastureland, which is every landowner’s dream.

But if you live next door in the Mossy Oak subdivision, or you have to drive through the dangerous intersection at Mt. Olivet and Good Hope roads, where the gravel trucks will travel, then you may be whispering a prayer of thanks for the current zoning rules. 

If the county supervisors overturn the land commission, it won’t be over yet, either.

Eureka residents have hired attorney John Lamar to fight Memphis Stone and Lamar, if necessary, will likely appeal to a circuit clerk judge on behalf of his clients. Then the judge’s decision, if appealed, would go to Jackson to the Mississippi Court of Appeals.

Prediction number two is that if the court case goes to Jackson, the judges will rule in favor of the land commission’s original decision.

Memphis Stone may sway a trusting supervisor with a plan to install flashing caution lights, and a promise to shake a finger at fast-moving truck drivers. But what matters most in a zoning matter is how a 200-acre mining operation changes the community, and if that change will adversely affect the area.

 Before they voted in May, commissioners read aloud the list of questions to consider in a zoning matter:

•Would Memphis Stone’s mining operation create potential traffic hazards?

•Would it conflict with the area?

•Have specific objections been raised from the surrounding area?

•Is Memphis Stone’s plan consistent with the long-term plan for the area?

I believe the court system will rule that Memphis Stone, on the day it begins digging for gravel, it cranks up the conveyor belt, it opens up the wash plant, and the gravel trucks begin idling along Eureka Road, will operate like a light industry in an industrial park.

It is not the corner bait shop in a quiet country community. It is a major mining operation.

And it does not belong where it wants to go.