ROBERTWSDALE, Alabama --- Valerie Harris admits when she moved into her home on Hubbard Road she was aware of the dirt pit located behind her property.

“It wasn’t that bad in the beginning,” she said of the huge trucks hauling dirt and other debris that constantly rumble along the road in front of and around her home. “When we first moved in, the trucks would start rolling around 8:30 or 9 in the morning.”

That was 4 ½ years ago for the single mother of two children, a son, Dominique, who is now a sixth grader at Robertsdale Elementary School and daughter, Re’geme, now a student at Robertsdale High School.

Harris works odd hours at The Compleat Angler Restaurant in Orange Beach while putting herself through school, attending classes at Faulkner State Community College in Gulf Shores.

While her schedule means she was home a lot during the day, as long as the activity of big trucks and heavy equipment used to smooth the dirt and debris out around the pit started and ended at a decent hour, everything was fine.

But then, several weeks ago, she said, the activity began getting earlier and earlier.

“Most days they start before 7 in the morning now and go well into the night,” she said. Then, a couple of weeks ago, trucks hauling sand and tankers hauling some form of liquid began rolling into the neighborhood between midnight and 3 a.m.

She said she stopped one of the trucks and was told by the driver they were hauling water and sand from a pipeline project in Orange Beach.

One day, Harris said, she had finally had enough.

“I had a day off from work and classes and was looking forward to getting some rest,” she said. But again that day, as every other day over the last few months, the trucks began rolling before 7 a.m., so she decided to see if something could be done about it.

First she called the city of Robertsdale and spoke with the mayor, but she was told because the property in question was located outside the city limits, there was nothing they could do.

“He said he wished there was something he could do, but his hands were tied in the matter,” she said.

Calls to the Robertsdale Police Department and the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Department received similar responses.

“They both said they could not prevent them from doing business out there,” Harris said. “I don’t want them to stop working, I just want them to respect the people who live out here and pay taxes.”

She was told who owns the property and attempted to call the owner for some answers. She was unable to contact the owner and the person she did talk to, she said, gave her a less than satisfactory answer.

“I was told that the business was operating out there long before we were there and we should have thought about that when we moved in,” she said. “I was furious.”

A call to the business to obtain an interview with the owner of the company this past week received a similar response and inquiries for the owner to return phone calls have so far gone unheeded.

Harris said she has spoken to several other residents along the road and they have also expressed their concerns.

One resident, Marty Flirt said she is moving away from the area, in part because of the pit, but mostly because of the increase in crime in the area.

“We are in a kind of no man’s land out there,” she said, “and no one seems to want to do anything about it. I really feel for the people who live out there.”

Harris said complaints have also been filed with various health agencies, the Baldwin County Health Department, Environmental Protection Agency and ADEM, all of which have promised to investigate.

“I just want to be able to live in peace,” she said. “Everybody keeps telling us that there’s nothing they can do and I just don’t want to take that anymore. I deserve to live in peace.”