5 November 2021
The Segev Quarry―immediately west of Horvat Gamum in Misgav―is large and deep, covering about 200 dunams (about 50 acres). Owned by Readymix Industries (Israel) Ltd, it produced gravel, cement blocks, and quicklime since the 1950s, operated by Even v’Sid Ltd, which is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Readymix. From the road one cannot see into the deep quarry pit, but one sees the quarry offices. In fact this small stone-clad building was already a relic from the British Mandate, when it was appropriated by the quarry in the 1950s. It had been a British Government Regional Police Station on the road between Sakhnin and the coast.
In 2017, after a long battle with the Misgav Regional Council that fought for many years to close it, the quarry ceased operations. With the growth of yishuvim in the area, and its close proximity to the Misgav Council complex of schools, health centres and sport and recreational areas and indeed the main road, its continuing operation had become a considerable nuisance and detraction to the local amenity, as well as public health and traffic issues. The last straw came when―against local feeling―it pressed ahead with submitting plans to expand eastwards and eat away Horvat Gamum, an unexcavated iron age settlement. As a result of the Misgav Council’s unequivocal and decisive recommendation to the district against the plan, the district planning committee froze it, and it was eventually shelved. The developers then tried to promote the expansion of the quarry in line with the national master plan for mining and quarrying which was then being promoted by the state. Misgav Council successfully mobilised against this action and worked to have the quarry withdrawn from the national master plan. Quarrying at the site was stopped in August 2015 and, the next year the concrete plant was shut down. In 2017 the quarry was removed from the national master plan.
Some rehabilitation―creating terraces and planting trees along them―was carried out as early as 2008 on defunct portions of the quarry, but today a bare deep scar remains. A public consultation on further rehabilitation, after the site closed, was carried out but works are yet to be agreed.
