A Tamaqua company is giving up on plans to expand a rock quarry along Hollow Road in East Penn Township.

The decision comes much to the delight of a group of neighbors, the East Penn Concerned Citizens, who have been fighting the project since 1999.One of the driving forces behind the EPCC, resident Nancy Blaha, found out about Lehigh Asphalt and Paving Construction Company's latest update after filing a Right to Know request with the township.She received a copy of a letter in response to a letter from Brian Chabak, Lehigh Asphalt's environmental manager, in which he stated the company would not apply for a new Department of Environmental Protection permit to mine the 114-acre property, owned by Charles and Agnes Messina."I was told that Lehigh Asphalt had two prior applications revoked and that the only permit they had remaining was for the 11.5 acres they mined originally," Blaha said. "Their plan is to start reclaiming the land this spring or summer. That permit will then go away and they're done."On Tuesday, DEP mining engineer Joe Blyler confirmed the news."That is what Lehigh Asphalt told me," Blyler said.The company had quarried stone on 11.5 acres property owned by Charles and Agnes Messina for years and in 1999 applied to DEP for expansion.It was at an October 1999 meeting in the township where opposition began to mount."We had over 200 names on a petition to stop the expansion," Blaha said. "I remember DEP telling us behind closed doors that we couldn't win this. Lehigh Asphalt is owned by Glaskow, a multimillion dollar company, and they really wanted to do this."At the time, the zoning ordinance in East Penn wasn't stringent and allowed for mining just about everywhere in the township, Blaha said. After the language was changed, Lehigh Asphalt applied for a special exception, but EPCC fought it, and East Penn's zoning hearing board denied the request.Lehigh Asphalt appealed the decision to the Commonwealth Court and lost. The state supreme court refused to hear the case."We also changed the language in the zoning ordinance in terms of how you could expand a nonconforming use," Blaha said. "Lehigh Asphalt fought that and won. I kept checking to see if they would apply to expand a nonconforming use, and that is when I found out about their decision to give up."A call to Chabak on Tuesday afternoon was not returned.Charles Messina, who still owns the property in question, said he told Lehigh Asphalt last year that he wouldn't sign a new agreement unless the company purchased the property."They didn't want to go along with anything," he said. "I think they fought the township and the neighbors for so long that they just didn't want to spend more money."According to Messina, the mineral rights would transfer to the new property owner if and when he sells the land.For Blaha, the most recent news comes as a relief and gives EPCC a sense of satisfaction."We were a little band of people who didn't know anything about mining or zoning, but we emerged victorious," Blaha said. "We're happy. The moral of the story is don't let anyone tell you that you can't. So many people told us this was not possible."