A rock quarry in Limestone County has been the center of attention before the Alabama Senate this week in Montgomery.

Two local legislators, Sens. Tom Butler, D-Madison, and Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, shut down the senate Tuesday in a dispute over legislation that would block a rock quarry in the Tanner community.

Butler and Orr launched a filibuster to protest inaction by a Senate committee on local bills affecting the project.

“We’ve shut it down for the past days and I intend to do the same when we go back into session tomorrow,” Butler said Wednesday. “I’ve been talking for an hour on each bill and I’m going to continue doing that until I get some attention.”

The Senate was not in session Wednesday. Butler said the session would resume today and probably end May 20.

The rock quarry bills he and Orr sponsored are being held up intentionally “by the rock quarry people,” Butler said.

“They are asking for a public hearing just to delay the bills,” he said. “They have tentatively set a public hearing for March 26.”

A public hearing was set last week but was canceled due to the lack of a quorum.

Two bills, one that would give the Limestone County Commission the authority to approve rock quarries in the county and another that would ban construction of any quarry within 10 miles from a nuclear plant, are being proposed.

The bills have passed the House and are awaiting Senate action.