by Judy Frank
posted June 20, 2008
Incumbent state Rep. Jim Cobb, R-Spring City, and his challenger, former Rep. Jim Vincent of Soddy-Daisy, sparred Friday over the legality of “rock harvesting,” a controversial practice that treats rocks as just another mineral that can be harvested with or without the permission of the person who owns the land where the rock is located.
When Tennessee defined “minerals” in a 1934 law, rock was not one of the four substances covered, the former state representative said.
And regardless of recent judicial decisions to the contrary, he told members of the Southeast Tennessee Political Action Committee, “rock is not a mineral."
But Rep. Cobb, a member of the House Government Operations Committee that killed a proposed compromise that would have restrictions on rock harvesting, told SETPAC members that it is legal for people who own mineral rights to include rock among the minerals they have the right to dig up and extract.
“There’s a lot of people who put food on the table harvesting rocks,” he said.
The two did agree, however, that if the rocks are harvested, the “rockers” who strip off the soil and vegetation to get to the rocks should be required to return the stripped land to its previous condition.
“The people who come in with bobcats and backhoes . . . who don’t reclaim the land – they’re the problem,” Rep. Cobb said.
The candidates also disagreed over the wisdom of building a toll bridge between Soddy-Daisy and Harrison, to cut down on the driving distance between the two committees.
“When gas is $5 or $10 a gallon, having that bridge would save a lot of driving,” Rep. Cobb said. But paying for it is a challenge, he said, “so we have to think outside the box.”
But former Rep. Vincent said he prefers to continue Tennessee’s traditional pay-as-you-go approach to road construction, and use money collected from gas taxes to cover the cost of projects such as the proposed bridge.
The bridge is currently high on the state’s list of proposed projects, he said, and will be built within the next few years using traditional funding methods.
“To me, tolling is a bad idea,” he said. “I can’t see paying $4 or $5 to go across a bridge.”
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