Georgia’s Stone Boom Still Hits a Local Permit Wall

Georgia construction aggregate prices rose 24.6% from 2019 to 2022, the 11th-steepest jump in the country, even as the state remained one of America’s busiest crushed-stone producers. The ranking, from a Twisted Nail review of U.S. Geological Survey figures published on July 17, 2024, already sat well above the national 15.8% gain. The next bill showed up on road jobs and house pads, because the rock is heavy and the next pit is a county vote.

Georgia’s 24.6% Jump Outran the U.S. Average

Twisted Nail, a Waco, Texas, trucking and aggregate supplier, weighted crushed stone and sand and gravel by how much each state produced, then measured the price change from 2019 to 2022. In Georgia, crushed stone rose 24.3% and sand and gravel rose 20.4%. Combined, that is the 24.6% overall increase, 11th among the states.

Hunter Kosar, owner of Twisted Nail, has said delivery fees can run from 30 to 70 percent of a contractor’s final material cost, which is why a statewide surplus does not set the price on an Atlanta job. The same study put the United States at +15.8% overall, with crushed stone up 15.1% and sand and gravel up 16.9%. Texas, California, and Ohio, all large producers, stayed under 10%.

GEORGIA VERSUS THE U.S., 2019 TO 2022

Those tonnages are Twisted Nail’s study-period figures, not the later USGS quarterly survey. The $35 billion of crushed stone and sand and gravel produced in the United States in the year the firm cited is the scale of the market Georgia was already inside when its prices pulled away from the average.

A Top-Eight Producer Still Short of Local Stone

The U.S. Geological Survey’s February 2026 Mineral Commodity Summaries listed Georgia among the 10 leading crushed-stone states for 2025, in this order: Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and Indiana. Those 10 accounted for about 56% of U.S. output. About 70% of the national rock was limestone and dolomite, and 14% was granite.

The Survey’s later quarterly sample, using company sales, put Georgia’s 2025 crushed-stone total at 59.5 million metric tons in 2025, with an estimated value of $1.69 billion. In the first quarter of 2026, Georgia shipped 13.9 million metric tons of crushed stone, up 4.9% from the first quarter of 2025, and ranked fifth among the states. Texas, Missouri, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia together shipped 115 million metric tons that quarter, up 5%.

GEORGIA STONE AND SAND, LATEST USGS SAMPLE

• Crushed stone, 2025: 59.5 million metric tons, estimated value $1.69 billion.
• Sand and gravel, 2025: 8.26 million metric tons, estimated value $100 million.
• Crushed stone, Q1 2026: 13.9 million metric tons, up 4.9% from Q1 2025.
• Q1 2026 rank: Fifth among states for crushed stone shipped.

Sand and gravel is the smaller of the two piles in Georgia. The same quarterly survey had first-quarter 2026 sand and gravel at 2.00 million metric tons, up 11.5%. Combined construction aggregates in 2025 came to 67.8 million metric tons and $1.79 billion. The geology is not the bottleneck. The map of permitted pits is.

Hauling Fees Can Outrun the Rock Itself

Aggregates go into drainage, foundations, asphalt, and concrete. They are cheap by the ton at the face and expensive by the mile on a truck. Twisted Nail’s write-up put that plainly: because of weight and volume, the material is most cost-effective when it is sourced close to the job. When a county will not host a new pit, the next load comes from farther away, and the freight share Kosar described starts to crowd out the rock price.

The USGS made the same point in national language in February 2026. Commercial building, infrastructure money, labor, housing starts, and weather all move demand. Zoning and competing land uses near cities push new quarries farther out, and the extra haul plus fuel then lifts prices in the urban markets that need the stone.

The underlying factors that support an increase in prices for crushed stone were expected in 2026, especially in and near metropolitan areas. Shortages in some urban and industrialized areas were anticipated to continue to increase owing to local zoning regulations and land-development alternatives.

U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, February 2026

Nationally, the Survey tallied crushed stone valued at $27 billion in 2025, about 1.5 billion tons from some 1,400 companies and 3,500 quarries. About 72% of that stone went to construction aggregate, mostly roads. Georgia’s own operators sit in that same haul-bound market. The Georgia Construction Aggregate Association publishes member quarry locations across Georgia, a roster that includes Heidelberg Materials, Martin Marietta, Luck Stone, Foley Materials, and Junction City Mining. Adding a name to that list still requires a local yes.

County Boards Keep Turning Quarries Away

From 2024 through 2026, several Georgia counties heard new quarry plans and then closed the file. Neighbors cited dust, blasting, trucks, wells, and home values. Applicants brought traffic studies and well reports. The votes went to the people who already live next to the proposed gate.

THE PERMIT RECORD, 2024 TO 2026

1. August 2024: The Paulding County Planning Commission votes 5-0 to deny a 200-acre rock quarry on the Paulding-Carroll line. Mark Brown of TPM Land and Natural Resource Consulting, working with the applicants, writes that Georgia is in a deficit for the products rock quarries make for roads, schools, churches, homes, and businesses.
2. November 2024: The Jackson County Board of Commissioners denies nine special-use permits sought by Vulcan Construction Materials. The same month, Bartow County Commissioner Steve Taylor follows a 4-3 planning-commission recommendation and denies Georgia Stone Products’ bid to rezone 715.4 acres on Highway 140 for limestone, the company’s fourth try on that tract.
3. May 2025: A Jackson County Superior Court judge upholds the Vulcan denial, citing groundwater-recharge concerns and the county comprehensive plan. Vulcan had argued the fears were generalized and that the site was not a recharge area as defined.
4. December 2025: The Columbia County Planning Commission unanimously recommends rejecting a crushed-rock quarry proposed by Quality Materials Co. of Norcross on more than 360 acres between Harlem and Appling, a project valued at $40 million in state filings. Residents had objected over water and truck traffic.
5. June 2026: Putnam County Stone, led by Hans Dawson, withdraws a rezoning bid for a granite quarry on a 917-acre timber tract along Dennis Station Road after months of opposition over water, noise, dust, and property values. The company had already offered to shrink the plan to a little more than 300 acres.

Crawford County took the other path. Commissioners approved a quarry near Highway 80 and Girl Scout Road, and nearby families then sued Haiseal Timbers, Cottondale Partners, and Georgia Construction Aggregates as a nuisance, asking a court to stop the pit before it was built. Attorney David J. Marmins, representing residents, said they were not seeking money. Each refusal, or each delayed yes, leaves the next subdivision street and the next state resurfacing job drawing from pits that already exist.

Why Georgia Road Jobs Cost More Now

Walt Taylor, a civil engineer at the Georgia Department of Transportation, told a House study committee in August 2026 that asphalt resurfacing costs rose 42% from calendar 2020 to 2025, and that interstate asphalt resurfacing rose 62%. Concrete drainage stormpipes rose 127% from fiscal 2020 to fiscal 2026, he said, and inlet structures rose 196%.

Meg Pirkle, GDOT’s chief engineer, told the same committee that the National Highway Construction Cost Index was up 70% since 2021, and that indexing the same data to Georgia’s budget showed a 66% increase. She said the highway-construction market had not reset to pre-2020 prices. Those figures mix asphalt binder, labor, pipe, and stone. They are the invoice after the quarry gate, not a pure crushed-stone index. They are still the prices taxpayers meet.

WHAT GDOT SAID THE BIDS DID

In Warner Robins, City Administrator James Drinkard said a $2.48 million paving job covering 22 roads and 7.37 lane miles would run $324,933 a mile, more than 20% above the prior year and more than 43% above 2023, and he named higher asphalt and stone prices among the causes. GDOT’s own October 2026 asphalt cement index stood at $704 a ton, against $575 a ton in January 2025. Diesel on the same sheet was $5.987 a gallon in October 2026, against $3.548 in October 2025. That fuel line is the surcharge on every extra mile a belly dump runs when the nearest permitted pit is the wrong pit.

National Stone Prices Kept Climbing After 2022

The Twisted Nail window closed in 2022. USGS unit values did not. The average U.S. crushed-stone price was $14.31 a metric ton in 2022, $15.86 in 2023, an estimated $17.50 in 2024, and an estimated $18.50 in 2025, a 29% rise from 2022 to 2025 on the Survey’s own series. Production in 2025 was about 1.5 billion tons, unchanged from 2024 on the annual summary.

Federal-Aid Highway Programs under the 2021 infrastructure law were authorized at $55.7 billion in fiscal 2025 and $56.8 billion in fiscal 2026, with that funding set to expire at the end of fiscal 2026. During the first eight months of 2025, the Survey said total highway construction spending ran 25% below the same stretch of 2024. Demand did not have to boom for local shortages to keep biting. It only had to stay concentrated around the metros that will not host a new hole in the ground.

Recycled asphalt and concrete still supplied a thin slice of aggregate. The Survey counted 37 million tons of recycled material in 2023, 2024, and 2025, against 1.5 billion tons of virgin crushed stone. Substitutes exist. They have not replaced the quarry.

Producers Are Booking Another Growth Year

Jeff Wansley, executive director of the Georgia Construction Aggregate Association, told a trade interview in March 2026 that members had been “right on target with the growth that they’ve had in the last several years” and that 2026 looked like “another great growth year.” He pointed to state transportation dollars, GDOT’s pipeline, housing, and plants such as Hyundai near Savannah. From the operators’ side, the tons are moving.

That is the split the 24.6% figure was already describing. Existing pits and the trucks that serve them are busy. New pits near the houses and highways that consume the rock keep losing at the podium. USGS expected that pattern to keep lifting prices in 2026 around metropolitan areas. Georgia’s first-quarter 2026 crushed-stone rank, fifth in the country, shows the demand. The county minutes show the supply answer. The next load still has to come from somewhere, and the meter is running while it does.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Are Construction Aggregates Used for Besides Roads?

The U.S. Geological Survey estimated that 72% of crushed stone in 2025 went to construction aggregate, mostly roads and maintenance, while 17% went to cement manufacturing, 6% to lime, 1% to farm uses, and 4% to other chemical and specialty products. Construction sand and gravel had a different mix, with about 42% going into portland-cement concrete, 20% into road base and coverings, 12% into fill, and 9% into asphalt mixes.

Which States Had the Largest Aggregate Price Increases From 2019 to 2022?

Twisted Nail’s weighted ranking put New Jersey first at +41.1% and Utah second at +32.6%, with South Carolina, Mississippi, and Vermont also above 30%. Only four states averaged a lower cost of aggregates in 2023 than in 2019: North Dakota down 16%, Delaware down 13%, Louisiana down 10.6%, and Idaho down 2.7%.

How Many Crushed Stone Quarries Operate in the United States?

The Survey’s 2026 summary estimated 1,400 companies operating 3,500 quarries and more than 180 sales or distribution yards in all 50 states in 2025. A 2023 canvass counted 1,322 crushed-stone companies at 3,531 quarries and 389 yards, plus 3,100 sand-and-gravel companies at 6,324 pits and 319 yards.

Did Sand and Gravel Prices Keep Rising After 2022?

Yes. USGS average unit value for construction sand and gravel went from $10.52 a metric ton in 2021 and $11.35 in 2022 to an estimated $14.50 in 2025. The Survey put 2025 U.S. output at about 870 million tons worth $12.6 billion, with Texas, California, Arizona, Minnesota, and Michigan among the leading states. Georgia is not on that sand-and-gravel leaders list; its 2025 sand-and-gravel total was 8.26 million metric tons.