BARRED: QUARRY RESTRICTS USE OF SANDBAR BY THE PUBLIC

SCOTT CITY -- Jack Darby remembers the time he used to spend at Gray's Point sandbar with his dog. Those days came to a rocky end last month.

A barricade of large gray rocks now blocks access to the vestige of the road that leads to the sandbar for decades a recreational spot says Darby. He said the barricade was put in place by Tower Rock Stone, operators of a nearby quarry.

"People want it open," Darby said Tuesday at his small mobile home in Scott City. "I've gotten an awful lot of feedback from people around here.

"It is a big, nice sandbar during low water. People build fires and have barbecues."

The barricade and quarry are on County Road 307 off Route N. Darby contends that although the access road crosses private property, the law allows public roads across private land is they've been used as such for a long time.

Darby stood Tuesday before the barricade with his dog, a small, 11-year-old, mongrel named Miss Doodle Goodpuppy. A sign warning against trespassing said violators would be prosecuted.

Now 54, Darby said a young couple used to take him to the sandbar when he was 5 years old and it was public then. Prior to closure of the access road, he

would walk his dog on the sandbar and collect rocks, he said.

The bar is underwater most of the year. But during low water, the site becomes a large area where he lets his dog off her leash, something he can't do in town. He estimated the bar is up to 800 feet wide and more than a half-mile long.

Darby said he first found the access road blocked June 29. A guard at the quarry told him that day that the quarry's operators had placed the barricade at the site and that he would be prosecuted if he walked around it.

A woman reached by phone at the quarry's office Tuesday said the general manager, Jim Whelan, was on vacation and would not be back until Monday. She said other quarry representatives said they couldn't comment until Whelan returned.

The woman would not say who owned the property beneath the road, but a guard at the quarry's front entrance Tuesday said Tower Rock Stone and "the railroad" were joint owners. He said he didn't know which railroad also owned the property.

The guard said he's been told the road was blocked for safety reasons.

"Nobody's allowed on the property whatsoever that is what has been told to me." The guard said he knew that blocking off the road "didn't make no friends."

People, he said, would go to the sandbar in "four-wheeler" and four-wheel drive vehicles. Most went to the site to fish, he said, but a lot intruded on an adjacent field.

Darby said he has written to U.S. Congressman Bill Emerson and talked to Missouri Rep. Ollie Amick of Scott City about the matter.

Reached Tuesday, Amick said he has talked to a representative of Tower Rock Stone and is trying to keep in touch with the Missouri Conservation Department on the issue. The department, he said, has made "an overture" toward the state attorney general's office to determine how Missouri law applies to long-term public access roads over private property.

According to Amick, quarry officials claim their concern is security.

"My concern was to get the parties together and work out a satisfactory arrangement," he said. "So far, we hit sort of a stumbling block when they (quarry officials) said they had the security aspects."

Larry Gann, fisheries programs coordinator with the Missouri Conservation Department in Jefferson City, said Tuesday he had talked to Jim Whelan, the quarry manager, about a week ago and said that he would look at the situation the next time he's in the area.

But Gann said he told Whelan the department likely wouldn't be able to get involved in the matter because it does not involve boat access. A second conservation department official said the Gray's Point area is too shallow for a boat ramp.

Darby said an article in the July issue of "Missouri Conservationist" magazine that showed three Mississippi River public access points in Scott County. The magazine referred to all three as "proposed" sites.

A while back, he said, he had teased Amick by telling the legislator that if he ever falls out of a boat while fishing on the river, "you better tread water until you get to Charleston, because if you come ashore, you're going to be trespassing."