Alto homeowners say concrete batch plant threatens property value, health

Galen Farrington watched bulldozers, backhoes and construction equipment pull past his neighborhood and into the grassy lot across the road, and the 75-year-old retired school teacher knew the home where he planned to live out his final years would never be the same.

Farrington had a long career before he retired to a home in the Lower Alto area just outside Ruidoso. He was an Olympic bicycle rider and a college professor before retiring in 1996 to live, alongside wife Chris Farrington, 72, among the piñon pines and breathtaking mountain views of southern New Mexico.

Today, Farrington’s taken the role of investigator, researcher and litigator and his work now centers on mitigating the impact of air pollution he fears will result from the construction of a concrete batch plant by local company Roper Construction in Lower Alto.

Roper applied for his permit in September 2021 and what followed, according to Farrington, was a state permitting process shrouded in bureaucratic back-and-forth, lawsuits, protests and ultimately approval for the company to build its plant despite the outcry from nearby residents.

Owner of Roper Construction Ryan Roper said the facility will likely go into operation by summer 2024. According to the permit application, the plant will run 11 hours a day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. between November and February, increasing to a maximum of 18 hours a day, 3 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week, from May to August.

“This was where we planned to retire,” Chris Farrington said. “It’s our dream home. Now, we don’t know what we’re going to do.”

And after many of them spent upwards of $1 million on their retirement homes in the mountain, their life savings for peace of mind in the Land of Enchantment, the only thing they can do, Galen Farrington said, is fight.

“There are people slowly leaving the area because they have the means,” he said. “There are a lot of people that don’t have these options. We’re fighting for our lives. This has nothing to do with legality, and everything to do with humanity.”

Building a business in the wilderness

Ryan Roper wasn’t born far from where his concrete batch plant drew public outcry from the residents of Lower Alto.

He’s a native of Carrizozo and grew up on a ranch in the rural community, starting the construction company known as Roper Construction in 2005. He owns a rock crusher operation between Alto and Capitan, looking to capitalize on growth in the area and the subsequent demand for building materials like concrete.

That’s partially why Roper applied for a permit with the State of New Mexico to build the concrete batch plant along U.S Highway 220 north of Ruidoso, across the road from the entrance to Legacy Estates, the subdivision where the Farrington’s live.

He said like most of his industrial facilities, the Alto plant was in a remote area with about 20 to 30 homes within a quarter mile of the site. Farrington contested this assertion, pointing to 11 "long-established" neighborhoods nearby, some of which are within 150 yards of the site. The Alto Lakes Country Golf & Country Club is a mile away and the White Mountain Wilderness, a federally-protected Class-1 wilderness area, is about a 1.2 miles from the plant and home to at least five endangered species.

The facility would mix raw materials like rock, sand and water “like a cake,” Roper said, and dump the mixture into a truck that is then driven to where it is needed, be that a home, building or road under construction.

The location in Lower Alto was ideal, Roper said, as it was close enough to an area with the most demand for concrete. Concrete mixed that way must be delivered and dispensed within 90 minutes, he said, before it creates a chemical reaction, heats up and begins to harden.

The facility near Legacy Estates is needed, Roper said, to truly compete in the industry.

“The highest demand is in the Alto area. It’s where most of the influx is, especially on the larger homes,” Roper said. “It’s a combination of a lot of things, but primarily you’ve got to be close to the market to compete in the market.”

Farrington questioned that reasoning for the plant's location, arguing recent technological advancements allowed concrete to survive on the road for longer than 90 minutes. This suggested, Farrington said, that the plant could be further away from his neighborhood without costing Roper any business.

Roper said the plant seemed to him an innocuous project, but ultimately it set off a tidal wave of opposition from residents at Legacy Estates and around the facility. Residents like the Farringtons and several others took a strong stance against the project they feared would poison the air around their homes, subject their peaceful mountain residences to heavy noise and traffic for most of the day, and disrupt their way of life.

Mostly retirees, Roper said the residents opposing his facility are guilty of a “not in my backyard” mentality, willing to buy concrete from other facilities far from their homes but against the production of such material nearby.

“My take on it is, they’re trying to use every system available for ‘not in by backyard.’ They’re claiming they’re looking out for the little person. In reality, they’re complaining because it’s going in a wealthy area,” Roper said. “These people who say it’s going to kill them are more than happy to buy concrete from myself and my competitor which are based in disadvantaged areas.”

After heavy public outcry, the NMED’ Air Quality Bureau held a public hearing on Roper’s permit application, received the input from residents and denied the permit on June 22, 2022. Roper appealed the decision and on March 24, 2023 the state’s Environmental Improvement Board voted 4-1 to reverse the denial and grant Roper his permit.

The residents filed two separate lawsuits which were first consolidated and then dismissed on April 1 by New Mexico 12th Judicial District Judge John Sugg. Both suits argued the plant was prohibited by restrictions contained in the deeds of nearby landowners, which barred any land use that caused a nuisance to residents. Sugg disagreed and dismissed the residents’ claims.

Despite winning in court, Roper said it would take him a long time to recover financially from the legal entangling the facility incurred, likely years after it provides concrete to its first customers.

“Obviously, hopefully I’ll feel like it’s worth it. It’s going to take a long time to recoup the costs,” Roper said. “If you order it and it’s been sitting on the ground for three years, these things add up.”

Pete Blanchard, 81, sat on his land in a motor home unable to fathom building a house as a massive, cream-colored silo was erected directly between the two white-capped mountains he could see from his would-be back porch.

His view of Roper’s concrete batch plant is completely unobstructed by trees, fencing or even the highway that separates it from Legacy Estates. Blanchard’s land abuts the plant, as what was once a scenic meadow slopes downward onto his property from the facility.

Blanchard has been in the area since 1994. He owns the nearby Alto Café, where locals and visitors alike can stop and enjoy traditional diner fare like club sandwiches or pancakes all day. After decades in the restaurant business, Blanchard bought 10 acres on the east side of what became the plant.

He said he was aware of the proposal when he bought the property, but never thought it would really happen, and couldn’t resist that view.

“We kind of knew what was going on when we bought,” Blanchard said. “I’m down from that place. All the water that flows from that place, when it rains, comes onto my property. I don’t know what kind of chemicals they use.”

Farrington also noted Roper's permit application included no mention of where it would get water for the operations, or how groundwater contamination would be abated.

Blanchard’s and Farrington’s stories aren’t unique. Local real estate broker Manda Tomison said the project became a problem for homeowners looking to buy or sell throughout the region.

Her home, where Tomison said she’s lived since 1998, is walking distance from Roper’s facility. As a local and a housing market expert, Tomisan said she understands better than most how the industrial development would affect home and land owners.

“Everyone loves the climate. It’s not city life. They want to see trees and wildlife,” Tomison said. “If you put a concrete batch plant next to your house, and it just makes noise, you’re devaluing your land. To what extent it will be devalued, we don’t know yet.”

She said she was worried the plant would first make living in the area undesirable for the homeowners that are here, but also leave them unable to sell their homes to get out. There were 27 homes listed on the market in the region in April when Tomison was interviewed by the Ruidoso News. She said their values ranged from $223,000 to about $1.4 million.

That could change drastically, she said, when Roper's plant comes to life.

“Property values will go down dramatically when he goes into operation,” Tomison said. “It’s going to be tough to sell anything out there. They’re taking away our value and our air quality.”

Rural communities targeted by developers

What happened in Lower Alto is part of a broader trend of industrial development moving away from New Mexico’s urban centers and into some of the state’s rural areas, said NMED Deputy Cabinet Secretary Sydney Lienemann. And state officials are largely supportive.

There’s the Hota Industrial Manufacturing Co. factory in Santa Teresa, where the Taiwanese company plans to build car parts starting in 2025 along the rural border community outside of El Paso. New Mexico kicked in $3 million for the project via its State Economic Development Fund and made several subsequent incentives available to the company, according to a Sept. 25, 2023 article by the El Paso Times.

The New Mexico Economic Development Department in February said it was “ready to assist” Turnkey Ventures with financial aid for the Austin-based company’s manufacturing center of modular home products in a “long-closed” building at the Roswell Air Center. Turnkey plans to spend $11.8 million on the project and hire up to 350 workers, with support from New Mexico’s Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) program, pending official approval, according to an EDD news release.

Another company, Mesa Verde Enterprises, applied this year for permits to build two hot asphalt plants, according to NMED records. One will be located near Alamogordo and another just two miles from the community of Organ. Both of those are nestled up against the east and west borders, respectively, of White Sands National Park.

All these projects require air quality permits from NMED, and all of them will send toxic chemicals into the air in some concentration. Lienemann said she was confident the state’s regulations, and its permit requirements, would maintain the safety of the public and the environment amid the added pollution.

“More industrial activity is shifting from urban areas into more rural areas. It’s creating some new challenges,” Lienemann said in an interview with the Ruidoso News.

“We can’t control where applications for air quality permits come in. We don’t control the zoning of areas. The thing that we are able to control and regulate and have oversight over is how those potential projects may impact air quality issues in that area.”

She declined to comment specifically on any one project, including Roper’s concrete plant in Alto, but said NMED in all cases uses emissions modeling to ensure any release of pollutants is below thresholds set by state law for public health. She said the agency also includes heavy public input, when necessary and when requested, but also prioritizes economic opportunity for the state by facilitating companies that want to do business in New Mexico.

Industrial development in areas like Ruidoso help diversify the state's economy, Lienemann said, and help in the transition to industries that might produce less pollution than fossil fuels.

“It’s ensuring economic development isn’t only in areas where more people live. It’s also areas that are transitioning away from oil and gas development,” she said. “We’re seeing a lot of larger companies interested in areas that are shifting from an oil and gas-based economy. I have been thinking a lot about just transition issues.

“Having strong community involvement is the best possible outcome.”

Roper said he relied on the permitting process and the years of state oversight his facility underwent before it could open. He questioned how residents, and even he himself, could understand air quality issues and environmental impacts better than state experts.

“If I meet all the rules and regulations, and I’m trying to do everything on the up front, the NMED and (Environmental Protection Agency) are pretty restrictive,” Roper said of the approval process. “It’s not an easy thing.”

Death of a ‘forever home’

It’s not easy for 67-year-old Diorly Stierwelt either, as her fears of the concrete plant seemed to multiply the more she learned about it.

Stierwelt moved to Lower Alto in 2000 near the Farringtons’ home on Zorro Lane in the Coyote Mesa area. Ten years later she was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer at age 54, undergoing a double mastectomy, several rounds of chemotherapy, 28 days of radiation and other surgeries. She said her scenic home provided a “respite” from the anxiety brought on by the life-threatening diagnosis, and 18 months later she said she “survived.”

The home was threatened two years later by the Little Bear Fire, a wildfire that scorched about 45,000 acres in the area along with 254 buildings between June and July 2012. The fire jumped Highway 48, Stierwalt said, and seared through the Coyote Mesa.

She and her husband Darrel Stierwalt were forced to evacuate and returned a week later to find their home still standing, albeit having sustained $100,000 in damages, and 90% of their trees were gone. The lack of vegetation led to flooding, and an infestation of beetles devoured the weakened trees.

And despite cutting all of the beautiful trees that define the viewshed throughout the Ruidoso area, Stierwalt said her “forever home” persevered. They gained a full view of the Sierra Blanca mountain range, although they were subjected to increased road noise and lost some privacy when they lost their wall of evergreens.

This emboldened the Stierwalts that they could survive anything in the idyllic community they began to think they were destined to call home. Until Roper’s trucks moved in.

The concrete batch plant is less than half a mile from the Stierwalts’ home. She said she worried its fumes could impact her immunocompromised state as a cancer survivor, along with her husband who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). COPD obstructs airflow to the lungs and makes it hard to breathe, usually for the rest of a patient’s life, according to the American Lung Association.

Symptoms could be made worse, the Stierwalts feared, by the emissions of chemicals like nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide or volatile organic compounds that will be released by the Roper plant, according to its final permit.

Stierwalt pleaded for relief in a letter to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham dated April 14, 2023. More than a year later, she said she hadn’t heard back.

On Nov. 20, 2023, the Stierwalt’s 36-year-old daughter was diagnosed with an inoperable, malignant brain tumor and they ceased ongoing efforts to update their house in hopes of selling it, recovering a fraction of the value and moving on. Now, all of their resources go to medical care.

“We can no longer consider selling and moving since our priority needs to go to this horrific diagnosis, which also means she will live in the caustic environment of a batch plant with all of the negative issues that comes with it,” Stierwalt wrote in an addendum to her April 2023 letter.

“A tragedy beyond belief for our entire family.”

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on the social media platform X.

This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Retirees say Alto concrete batch plant threatens their way of life