Birmingham, Ala.-based Vulcan Materials Co. has agreed to pay the Illinois Dept. of Transportation $40 million to settle a 2001 lawsuit contending the aggregates producer damaged a former major artery that bisects an operating company quarry in McCook, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. The road has been closed for more than a decade after it shifted suddenly.

The suit contended that Vulcan, the largest construction aggregate supplier in the country, caused the damage by mining too close to the ridge that supports Joliet Road, compromising the road’s rock foundation. Vulcan countered that cracks in the century-old limestone quarry that caused the road to dip and buckle are much deeper than the company had mined, and that the damage could have been related to a 1998 earthquake.