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Article – Forestville’s Last Chance |
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Quarry Meeting Sunday, Sept 10, 4-6, 2006 at Oddfellows Hall, Forestville Information update & action planning What are we going to do?! by Richard Naegle & Vesta Copestakes The Blue Rock Quarry Problem: Blue Rock Quarry’ s proposal to triple its production is now on the fast track for approval by the County Board of Supervisors. This will mean a dramatic increase in truck traffic in Forestville — through Town and along Mirabel Road as well as River Road. Alarmingly, there is no guarantee of when the safety mitigations specified in the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) will be implemented. The Planning Commission at its last hearing admitted that mitigation measures could take more than five years or never happen at all. Meanwhile, the expansion will be approved and the trucks will roll. Blue Rock’ s proposed tripling of production (combined with Canyon Rock’ s production) would increase existing truck traffic by 35%. On a full production day in both quarries, upwards of 1100 trucks would move through town during a ten hour period. Imagine that! But supposedly all is not lost according to the EIR. Measures to mitigate the negative impacts “should” be built — measures such as the Bypass, adding shoulders and bike lanes to Mirabel Road, and/or adding a traffic light and left turn lane at Covey and 116 (which would eliminate street parking on 116 for fourteen, almost half, the businesses in the downtown). They “should” be built, but will they? At the last Planning Commission Meeting on July 27, Commissioner Rue Furch inquired into this, and two amazing facts became apparent. (1) The only mitigation that is now fully funded is the stop light at Mirabel and 116. It is in the County’ s Five Year Capital Plan and thus fully funded by the County. But, as Ms. Furch pointed out, these things move slowly in the County and could easily take 5-7 years before actual construction. Meanwhile, the quarry expansion would be allowed, truck traffic would monstrously increase, and so much for safety. (2) The second shocking fact came when Ms. Furch asked the Commissioners to recommend to the Board of Supervisors to not allow the actual production expansion by Blue Rock until the mitigations were in place, until safety protections were built. The rest of the Commission refused! Why? They said it was out of fairness. Since Canyon Rock Quarry, whose application was just approved, did not have that requirement, Blue Rock therefore should not. But that is comparing apples and oranges. Canyon Rock’ s expansion is geographic while maintaining its current level of production (and thus the same number of truck trips). Blue Rock’ s expansion proposal is to triple its production (thus tripling the number of its trucks on our roads). Fairness? What about fair to us? Forestville’ s quarry burden: Forestville currently carries the largest aggregate load in the County. In one town there are two quarries adjacent to each other and within a quarter mile of the downtown shopping area. Aggregate sales are booming with the 101 construction project, so current production levels, while increasing, are hard to assess. According to County statistics, Forestville quarries are responsible for 18-24% of all aggregate sold in the County. [4 million cubic yards were produced in So Co in 2005. The 18% figure is based on the average combined production, 1998-2002, of the two quarries: 490,000 cubic yards. The 24% figure is based on the maximum production now permitted to the two quarries: 750,000.] If Blue Rock is allowed to expand, Forestville’ s load would increase to about 30%. The burden on us is overwhelming! Bodean is exporting aggregate out of Sonoma County: Blue Rock’ s expansion of production is not immediately needed by our County since BR’ s parent company, Bodean, owns another Sonoma County quarry, Mark West, which is the primary exporter of aggregate to northern Napa County. While the exact export amount is proprietary knowledge, gravel industry insiders conservatively estimate that Bodean this year will ship more than 100,000 cubic yards of materials out of our County and into Napa County. If Bodean can do this, clearly there is no aggregate supply problem in our County nor does Bodean seem to be expecting one. While Planning Commission staff may know the exact proprietary information, do the decision makers? Do the Planning Commissioners and the Supervisors? Please note that the Supervisors are quite capable of making it clear to companies that they are expected not to ship gravel outside of the County. Such was done with Syar Industries. Then there is the larger issue of the general exporting of aggregate out of our County. According to the Sonoma County Aggregate Data, 12+% of the County’ s production of aggregate rock has been exported, of which 95% has gone to Napa and Marin counties. That means 320,000 cubic yards in 2005 — more than the total production expansion requested by Bodean in Forestville. Blue Rock therefore does not need to immediately expand. It can easily wait for mitigations to first be in place. Moreover, Bodean has applied for a production expansion at Mark West Quarry from 100,000 to 500,000 cubic yards. Bodean and the County thus have a reasonable alternative to the expansion of Bodean’ s quarry in Forestville where there are already two quarries currently mandated to produce 650,000 cubic yards. Fair is fair. Let Mark West which is not located in a town carry an equal load. The bottom-line is that Forestville must have safety and environmental mitigations in place before any more gravel trucks are put on our roads. The best alternative, as we see it, is the Bypass. No production expansion until the Bypass is built!On August 17, The Planning Commission will approve the expansion proposal and refer it to the Board of Supervisors, who then likely will schedule their hearing and vote on the proposal in late Sept or early October. Want to do something about this? Come to the Town Meeting on Sunday, September 10, 4-6, at the Oddfellows Hall (Covey and 116). We will plan what concrete actions we can take both individually and as a community to make our voices heard. See the FPA Reports article in this paper for the addresses of the County Supervisors. Mike Reilly is on our side, but the others need to hear loud and clear from us. Also, write letters to the editor in the Press Democrat, Russian River Monthly, and Sonoma West. One appeared in the PD August 9 — we need lots more. See the Action Alerts section of this website for addresses of the Supervisors. Back to Top Back to Issues & Updates Page |