INVITING WATERS IN QUARRIES HIDE A DEADLY MENACE (2024)

It was not the usual swimming hole, such as a natural lake, beach or

pool where the friends spent the afternoon splashing. It was a rock

quarry where three days earlier a 38-year-old Bowie surveyor had drowned

in the seductive, dangerous waters in western Howard County. He was the

fifth person to die in area quarries this month.

Coor said he and his Olney buddies have been swimming -- without

permission -- in the privately owned quarry for a couple of years. With

temperatures recently reaching triple digits, teen-agers and young

adults have flocked to the quiet spot from as far away as Hagerstown, he

said.

"It's cheap fun," said Foreman. "It's a social thing. A place to cool

off, get some rays and . . . no lifeguards."

Quarry ponds, once found only in isolated rural areas, are becoming

more a part of the suburban landscape, a gritty byproduct of the growth

and development boom in the Washington and Baltimore areas.

"The demand for quarries is in direct relationship to the development

going on," said Ed Larrimore, chief of the surface mining division in

the Maryland Water Resources Administration. "There are a lot more than

three years ago."

Quarries are surface mining operations where minerals are extracted,

largely for use in construction. Often sand and gravel quarry operators

hit ground water during their digging, converting the pits into swimming

ponds, some as deep as 400 feet.

More new quarries, as well as expansions of existing sites, are being

developed in the metropolitan area to meet increasing demand from

contractors for sand, gravel, limestone and crushed stone, often used in

building foundations, roads and parking lots, officials said.

"There are lots of quarries in Prince George's County, but not many

in Montgomery and Howard counties because of the availability and cost

of land," said Larrimore, who estimates the number of new quarries

statewide has jumped five percent since 1984. The fastest-growing areas

for quarries -- especially sand and gravel -- are Prince George's, which

has 52, and Charles County, with between 35 and 40, Larrimore said.

Of the 355 state-licensed quarries, 33 are in Anne Arundel, four are

in Montgomery and one in Howard, he said.

In Virginia, where there are a "little over" 500 licensed quarries,

the demand for new quarries also is on the rise, said Dick Cook,

director of the Department of Air Pollution Control.

There are five in Loudoun and three each in Prince William and

Fairfax counties. This year, the state has issued between 15 and 20 new

quarry permits, Cook said.

The District has no actively mined quarries, a spokeswoman in the

Department of Public Works said.

The generally secluded quarries, frequented by casual waders as well

as snorkelers, look like ponds and are surrounded by cliffs as well as

gradual shoreline. In active quarries, bulldozers and other mining

equipment may be several hundred feet away, but there are also trees,

grass, and other vegetation.

They are considered dangerous areas for swimmers because the quarry

floors can drop off sharply, and hazardous for ice-skaters in the

winter, when the ponds appears solidly frozen when they are not,

officials said.

This summer, police have reported five quarry drownings in the

metropolitan area. Maryland state statistics are unavailable, but

Larrimore said there has been no significant increase in quarry

drownings in recent years.

Still, quarries can be a deadly lure. On Aug. 2, three Prince

George's County children, aged 5, 8, and 13, drowned when they decided

to go swimming in a murky quarry pond at rural Brandywine. Five days

later, a 20-year-old Woodbridge man died while swimming with some

friends at a Fairfax County-owned quarry near Occoquan.

On Friday, John W. Adams of Bowie drowned at the Howard County

quarry.

On Monday, the shallow waters around the edge of the Howard County

quarry, unused as a mining site for more than 10 years, looked

refreshingly tempting. Large slabs of rock were clearly visible just

below the surface. Two men in snorkeling gear said there is an

underwater cave in the middle of the quarry, believed to reach depths of

200 feet.

"The quarry waters become inviting to jump in," said Larrimore. "But

the water is deeper than what you think."

Inexperienced swimmers can lose their footing on the rocky bottoms,

while cliff climbers can slip on the steep slopes, Larrimore said.

The Prince George's quarry was not fenced in and the state does not

require it. Some others, however, such as the quarries in Fairfax and

Howard counties, have installed chain-link fences, posted "No

Trespassing" signs, and hired security guards to keep out intruders.

Still, children and adults make their way through holes in the fence

and continue to swim there.

"We're not hurting anybody -- we're here at our own risk," said

Bentley Hoover, 27, of Catonsville, Md., floating on a raft close to the

pond's edge. Hoover left just before police, who look in on the site at

least once a day, ran off about a dozen swimmers.

But Hoover's friend, Dan Fendlay, 22, was a bit more sheepish about

the afternoon frolic. "I still come, but I know it's not right," said

Fendlay. "If I lived out here, I wouldn't want me here either."

Quarries are basic to the economy, which is why there are so many of

them. The stone, sand and gravel they produce are essential to the

construction of roads and buildings. As the suburbs grow outward and

encircle the quarry pools, more people use them for swimming,

unsupervised and without lifeguards. Unlike lakes, they have no sloping

shore, no place to touch down. The swimmer is always in over his head.

QUARRIES MAY BE SEVERAL HUNDRED FEET DEEP.

SIDES ARE VERTICAL, MAKING IT DIFFICULT FOR A SWIMMER TO GET OUT.

AS QUARRIES ARE DUG DEEPER, SPRINGS ARE OPENED. ABANDONED, THE PIT

FILLS WITH WATER.

SURFACE WATER TEMPERATURE MAY BE 80 . CONVECTION BRINGS COLD WATER

WELLING UP FROM BELOW THAT IS ONLY 45 .

SWIMMER CAUGHT IN COLD WATER FINDS MUSCLES STIFFEN, GASPS FOR AIR,

MOVEMENT BECOMES DIFFICULT.