Rock Bottom

“Which department are you talking about? ” I asked.

“Natural Resources,” Bill Jr. said. His father was also at the table and nodded his agreement from time to time. So was John Wall, a quarry manager with no quarry to manage yet. Wall, a strong, stocky man with a barrel chest, was anxious for the project to start. Only now a bunch of upper-class dilettantes was getting in the way, obstructing a quarry that had the chance to be massively profitable and modern. “State of the art,” said Wall.

“When you’re a visiting geologist [in Nova Scotia], the government puts you in a helicopter and shows you potential sites. Try to get that in New Jersey,” he said. “They might take you up in a helicopter and push you out.”

Bill Jr. laughed at his own joke, but his sense of betrayal was evident. Nova Scotia’s Department of Natural Resources advertises a “One Window Process,”in which it hastens investment by arranging for representatives of the relevant government departments — primarily Natural Resources, Environment and Labour, Fisheries and Oceans, and Transportation — to be present and see the issues resolved, only now the window had been muddied, and the view on the horizon was unclear. Still, Bill Jr.’s bearing was that of a pugilist ready, even eager, for the fight’s deciding rounds.”

The opponents are allowed to say anything,” he said. “The most outrageous statement, accusation, lie gets in the paper and is accepted as being fact . . . I mean, I’ve heard everything: the employees are going to be American; they’re going to impregnate all the women on the Neck and then leave behind the war babies and the war brides.”

“I really believe that the greatest opposition is from [Americans] who are there two months a year,” added Bill Sr.

Quarrying is not a pretty business, I said, then asked if they were used to resistance.

“What we do is heavy industrial mining, and we go through this every time we want to open,” Bill Jr. said. “Down here, typically, you have to place things where they are zoned to be placed, which is what we thought we were doing . . . New Jersey is probably the second-toughest state in the country to operate a business in, certainly one of the toughest states to operate mines in. This is an extremely environmental state . . . it’s much more difficult to operate a business here than anyplace in Canada.

When I asked if being a quarry company with a guaranteed supply of 2 million tons of basalt a year might make them an attractive takeover target, Bill Jr. shrugged. “I’m not going to say it won’t,” he said. Then I asked the Claytons how they would feel if they were to find themselves in the vicinity of such a controversial project.

“It wouldn’t happen,” Bill Sr. said. “The history here has been that there’s no new quarries open since ‘65.”