ERWIN, Tenn. (WJHL) — Jennifer Abril’s first clue that her quiet neighborhood of narrow streets was about to undergo a radical change came because she was being “nosy.”

Abril lives on North Walnut Street, just outside Erwin’s city limits, in a small neighborhood tucked between Interstate 26 to the southeast and a steep slope that quickly rises 800 vertical feet above the valley floor to the northwest.

“This is affordable place, and I love my house,” Abril, whose income comes from disability payments and who shares costs with a roommate, told News Channel 11 Thursday. “I absolutely love living here. It’s just a nice little neighborhood to be living in.”

About a week ago, a man was clearing trees and bushes at the base of the mountain across North Walnut from her small home.

“I got nosy and I asked him, ‘so what are you all doing here? And that’s when he told me that they were building a weigh station there because they were put in rock quarry up the road,” Abril said. “I was like, ‘are you serious?’ He goes, ‘yeah.'”

Now, days later, Abril, her next door neighbor Jonathan Roberts, and even Unicoi County Mayor Bubba Evely are trying to get solid answers about what’s coming. Earlier this week, Abril and Roberts received hand-delivered letters from a company saying it was conducting “pre-construction surveys” of homes for Baker’s Excavation Services.

Those letters mentioned an “Erwin Borrow Pit” and said because “blasting may or may not be required,” they were offering surveys in case blasting created any issues at nearby homes. Roberts said he emailed Evely, as did Abril.

“He told me that he didn’t even have very much information,” Roberts said as he sat inside the two-bedroom home he purchased a few years ago. “So, you know, it’s a little concerning to be in the dark in your own home about what’s happening across the street and up the road. I think it’s even more concerning when the local elected officials are completely unaware about what’s happening as well.”

Evely confirmed he just learned about the project himself, that he doesn’t know much yet, and that because Unicoi County does not have any zoning regulations, only state permitting regulations would impact what the company could or could not do. A trip to the Register of Deeds office shows “JJJ&P Partnership,” representing Baker’s, paid $1,550,777 for 185 acres, finalizing the deed Tuesday.

Evely said although “we don’t have any ordinances that would prohibit that,” he did alert the county’s road superintendent to the plans.

“It is not a wide road,” he said. “Cars have a hard time passing on it as it is … so while I have concerns, we have limitations on what the county can do.”

Meanwhile, Abril and Roberts say while they’re not happy at the prospect of a quarry somewhere on the wooded slopes behind them, they’re more concerned about the traffic and the weigh station that will be so close they can practically reach out and touch it.

“My car is small and my car and another car of that size can barely fit on the road, crossing each other,” Abril said.

“I would hate to imagine how difficult it’s going to be getting in and out of the neighborhood and accessing our homes when we’ve got dump trucks coming in and out of here,” Roberts added.

As it turns out, those dump trucks will be delivering material to the ongoing Hurricane Helene reconstruction efforts.

Jessica Baker is with the company and answered several questions by email. She said the “disturbed area” will total around 5 to 10 acres behind an existing water tank up the hill. The company will be quarrying “shot rock” and clay “to supply material to construction projects for railroad reconstruction and other reconstruction projects in the area due to Hurricane Helene.”

Asked whether the company was willing to hold an open meeting to allow neighbors to ask questions about the operation, Baker said “if necessary” they would be willing to do so.

She said the “borrow pit” shouldn’t be visible to passing traffic on Interstate 26 and that all permits have been obtained from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

“Numbers of trucks will vary depending on the material needs of ongoing reconstruction projects,” Baker said in answer to a question about how much traffic will be on North Walnut. And she said the location was attractive “due to accessibility to the needs of the contractor.”

Abril said she was disappointed to learn the county has no zoning regulations. She’s concerned about potential blasting. Roberts said late Thursday afternoon the inspector who visited that morning put a seismograph in his yard, to stay for several months, and told him blasting would begin Monday afternoon.

“This week really in earnest is when we started learning about it, and we’re kind of flying by the seat of our pants, trying to figure out what we can do to spread the word and help raise awareness,” Roberts said.

“There’s all kinds of concerns with noise pollution, with just physical pollution, the amount of dust that this might bring, the rocks that we might have,” he said.

“We saw how damaged I-26 got from all of the heavy trucks and and other machinery coming in to help with Hurricane Helene relief efforts. If I-26 couldn’t sustain all that weight underneath it coming back and forth, I can’t imagine that a little rural road like this would be able to do the same.”

Abril, who said she can’t afford to move and really doesn’t want to, said she’s worried about safety of the children who live in the neighborhood.

“We’ve got a lot of children in this neighborhood that ride their bikes all summer long up and down these roads, even when it’s not summer,” she said. “How safe are they going to be coming down these roads with these huge dump trucks coming through? And the safety of everybody else who’s driving on this road, too — what’s going to happen if they drop rocks and they fling off and bust windshields and stuff?”

Roberts said he’s concluded that the mostly low and moderate-income residents of the small neighborhood have extremely limited options.

“It doesn’t appear that there’s any legal recourse for us to stop it really,” he said. “But I know there’s a lot of concerns with how this will affect our neighborhood.”