Air violations raise questions about quarry operator

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Saturday, October 1, 2005 11:18 PM PDT ∞

TEMECULA ---- Granite Construction says it will go out of its way to be a good neighbor to Southwest County if given the green light to dig one of the nation's largest gravel pits, but opponents say its record in other states suggests anything but neighborliness.

The Central California company is seeking permits from Riverside County to open a rock quarry in the mountains southwest of Temecula, just north of the Riverside-San Diego county line. But the proposal for the site at Interstate 15 and Rainbow Valley Boulevard has triggered widespread opposition from community groups on both sides of the line and from San Diego State University, which operates a research station and ecological reserve nearby.

Some of the most vocal opposition has come from Save Our Southwest Hills, a De Luz group fighting to preserve the Temecula area's distinct ridge lines. Kathleen Hamilton, group president, said the company's long history of violations is a concern and raises serious questions about whether it would take measures to protect nearby communities from the impacts of mining, such as dust, noise and truck traffic.

"It looks like they consider fines to be a cost of doing business and that they prefer to pay the fine rather than to correct the problem," Hamilton said.

Granite Construction's record in Nevada is particularly disturbing, Hamilton said.

According to state records, the Nevada Environmental Commission fined Granite several times over the past 17 years: $3,500 in September 1993, $12,000 in January 1998, $8,000 in March 1998, $30,000 in September 1998, $9,670 in December 1999, $6,785 in April 2000 and $15,400 in August 2000.

Most citations the regulatory agency issued dealt with failure to control dust at various plants and construction sites. One was issued for operating a new crushing and screening operation near Carson City without a permit. Another was issued for digging a discount store site without a permit in Nevada's capital city.

One of the air quality citations stemmed from a Dec. 2, 1999, incident that was addressed in an April 2000 commission meeting, records show.

"At that time we observed major quantities of dust coming from the site to the extent that it was creating a road hazard, or diminished visibility on Highway 50 East out of Carson City," Eric Taxer, compliance enforcement branch supervisor for the state Bureau of Air Quality, told commissioners.

'In here all the time'

By late 2000, those Nevada commissioners appeared to have lost their patience with Granite. Three violations in June of that year triggered yet another fine, for $15,400, and provoked extensive debate at a meeting that August. One commissioner observed that Granite and a few other companies "seem to be in here all the time" for violations.

"...I don't think monetarily you're charging them enough to really make a difference in their operations," commissioner Paul Iverson stated, according to commission archives.

"I can just about guarantee you ... that we can go ahead and approve a $15,600 fine, or whatever it is, and before the year is over I would almost bet that we will be talking to these people again," Iverson said.

In the same meeting, commissioner Mark Doppe observed: "There are companies that are not as large as Granite, but that have as many jobs ongoing at one time in southern Nevada, that don't have anywhere the history of noncompliance in southern Nevada that Granite has statewide."

Gary Johnson, Granite aggregate resource development manager, said he could not address the Nevada citations. He said the company is preparing detailed comments about those and other citations for the Riverside County Planning Commission, which will play a key role in determining whether Granite can open Liberty Quarry.

Granite has been cited in California, too.

In the Central Valley, the company was cited 25 times and fined a total of $25,750 by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, for plants it operates in Kern and Tulare counties, said Janelle Schneider, district spokeswoman. Dating back to 1992, the violations were for failures to contain dust, operate a ventilation system properly and comply with permit conditions. The largest single fine was $4,800.

The type of violations and size of fines are "not out of the range of what is considered normal for operations like this," Schneider said.

Granite also has been cited in connection with a gravel pit in eastern Riverside County, said Tina Cherry, a spokeswoman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates quarries in Riverside and three other counties.

Cherry said the agency cited Granite six times, all in 2001 and 2002, for allowing dust to drift away from its Indio pit. The fines totaled $12,350, and the heftiest fine was $4,000.

She said the violations weren't unusual for a large gravel mining-asphalt-concrete operation.

"For the size of their facility, they are pretty clean," Cherry said. "They are proactive as far as working with us to control emissions."

Johnson said those Indio violations mostly occurred on windy days.

"That's not an excuse," he said. "That's just a contributing factor."

Johnson said no citations have been issued since 2002 because the company put an aggressive monitoring program in place, and because new South Coast rules require plants to shut down in high wind.

Hazardous waste

Air quality isn't the only regulatory arena where citations surfaced. In September 2003, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control fined Granite Construction $4,000 for a hazardous waste violation. Granite was cited for transporting 60 tons of material containing previously burned waste to a Stockton landfill that wasn't designed to take it, officials said.

Johnson said a consultant performed the wrong test to determine if the material contained certain chemicals and whether it could be disposed of at that particular dump. When landfill operators raised questions, Granite conducted another test, he said.

"We called the landfill back and told them that the material should not have been disposed of, and blew the whistle on ourselves," Johnson said.

In making a general comment about citations, Johnson said, "We operate our plants to conform to our permits, and if we make a mistake we are embarrassed by it and we move quickly to correct it."

Citations aside, Hamilton insisted the company would not be a good neighbor because of the nature of gravel mining operations, no matter how well run. Hamilton said a recent drive past a quarry in Temescal Canyon north of Lake Elsinore convinced her of that. She said the noise, dust, trucks and hole in the ground starkly illustrated why a pit would not be a good fit for the hills near Temecula.

"It is just so devastatingly ugly, you can't imagine, and it is not nearly as big as the one that we are going to have," Hamilton said. "I don't think there is any question that they could never be a good neighbor."

De Luz resident Kerry Mayer agreed.

"I don't know how you have a good gravel pit," Mayer said. "I don't see any charming way to do one of these things."

A thousand feet deep

Granite is seeking the green light to dig a 1,000-foot-deep, nearly 1-mile-long gravel pit just north of the Riverside-San Diego county line.

Johnson maintains that no one in Temecula would see the Liberty pit because views would be screened by the tall mountains lining I-15. Nor will they see or breathe dust or hear blasting noises. He said half of the site would be mined; the outer ring would be preserved in natural open space to provide a buffer against adjacent properties.

Because of direct freeway access, Johnson said, the hundreds of trucks that would daily haul gravel to markets in San Diego and Riverside counties would not weave through neighborhoods. Granite supplies material primarily for highway and road construction.

While residents' concern is understandable, said Adam Harper, manager of the Sacramento-based California Mining Association, there is reason to believe that Granite will be sensitive to the communities of Southwest Riverside County.

"I understand that people are always skeptical when a mine wants to come to town," Harper said. "But Granite Construction will put together a good project, and I think as this process moves forward that is going to become apparent to the community."

Harper, who stressed that Granite is not an association member, said the company has a good reputation in the industry. Granite, based in Watsonville, is a Fortune 1,000 company that generates more than $2 billion a year.

Johnson stressed that the company is committed to neutralizing whatever impacts an environmental analysis concludes would occur.

Following an Aug. 17 scoping hearing in Temecula before county planning commissioners, Granite launched an environmental study that will take one year to finish. The study will be followed by more hearings. County officials say it will be up to four years before a decision is made on whether to let the company mine up to 270 million tons of granite over the next 75 years.

Granite is eyeing the estimated $3 billion worth of rock it could mine from the 311-acre site during those 75 years.

A good neighbor

At the same time, Harper said, Granite is not the kind of company that would roll in to make a quick buck and roll out, leaving behind a big mess.

"They want to be a good neighbor," Harper said.

Johnson said the company has been a good neighbor to Indio.

Agreeing with that assessment, long-time Indio Councilman Mike Wilson, a retired firefighter, said residents of his city do not see the Indio gravel pit because it is tucked behind hills just north of the city.

"They're pretty much shielded from everything," Wilson said.

Noise has not been a problem. Neither has dust, he said.

"Personally, as a council member, I have never received a letter or a phone call or anything from the community having to do with any complaints with Granite or the operation up there," he said.

That is not to say there aren't impacts, he said. Trucks pour out of the quarry on their way to Interstate 10 and pass through a new housing tract that is under construction. But the city is requiring the developer to make the road sturdy enough to handle the trucks and to install sound walls to block noise.

"The quarry was there first," Wilson said.

In Southwest County, quarry opponents stress that Temecula, Murrieta and De Luz ---- and an ecological reserve ---- were there first.

Dan Silver, executive director for the Endangered Habitats League, noted the Liberty site is next to San Diego State University's 4,500-acre Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve, where diverse scientific research goes on and the free-flowing Santa Margarita River tumbles through a scenic gorge. Silver said the site is in the path of the one remaining corridor cougars travel between the coastal Santa Ana Mountains and the inland Palomar Mountain range.

Silver said he can't understand why the county is even bothering with a review. Gravel pits ---- all of them ---- leave giant holes behind and stir up thick clouds of dust, he said.

"The point is, you're not going to be able to fix these problems," Silver said.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2616, or ddowney@californian.com.

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