Mining hearing ends on anticlimactic note
Decision that could bring gravel trucks to mountainous route 33 delayed
By Bill Lascher 06/07/2007
Backers of a plan to build a rock mining operation just west of the Ventura County line and state Route 33 and their opponents were left hanging by the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission May 30.
Commissioners were set to vote at the special hearing on Troesh Materials, Inc.’s proposed Diamond Rock Sand and Gravel Mine, but postponed the matter until at least July 11. If approved, the 133 acre mine would be built adjacent to the Cuyama river in northern Santa Barbara County.
Supporters want the mine built because they claim it would supply much needed building materials to keep construction costs low in Southern California. Opponents say mining operations — including transporting the materials to job sites — would damage the environment and overload mountainous roads with heavy gravel trucks.
“Our general feeling is the postponement is just to defuse the opposition,” said Howard Smith, the chairman of the Stop the Trucks Coalition who also chairs the board of directors of the Ventura County Economic Development Association. “We do not believe that [the Santa Barbara County Planning Commissioners] have the least bit of concern about our concerns.”
Cherisse Troesh, a spokeswoman for Troesh Materials, did not respond to a request to comment for this story.
Gary Kaiser, the planner supervising the project for Santa Barbara County, said the commission wants to take more time for staff to find answers to issues raised by public comments at the hearing and to prepare for further questions the commissioners may have.
Kaiser said that one issue that came up was that although Troesh agreed to meet a low threshold for truck traffic requested by Ventura County officials, it wouldn’t be feasible to meet air quality standards for trucking in that county.
“The threshold was so low that it did not make their project feasible if they’re going to try to serve the Oxnard and Ventura areas,” Kaiser said. “They couldn’t really compete for any of the major jobs down there. So that mitigation measure was not identified as something that we thought was going to be feasible.”
Santa Barbara County is not under a legal obligation to require Troesh to meet those standards, Kaiser said, and, he said, the staff will offer language modifying the environmental impact report to clarify that position.
But Smith said that calculations used to come to Santa Barbara’s own air quality requirements were inaccurate and that he and fellow opponents would sue the county if it does not prevent Troesh from running trucks on Route 33.
“If they do not come forward with a ban based on the need to mitigate the environmental quality we will litigate this thing to the nth degree,” he said.
Smith said that added to other mines in the area, including another in Ventura County with an expansion proposal up for review, the Troesh Mine would bring too much truck traffic for the Ojai Valley to bear.
“[The truck traffic] would absolutely destroy the Ojai valley both in air quality, safety, and ultimately, our economy, agriculture and the private school industry,” he said. “These are devastating impacts. We as a community have no choice but to fight this.”
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