OCEANSIDE: Residents tour old quarry
Visitors get up-close view of reclamation plan
By PAUL SISSON - Staff Writer | ∞
Interested residents tour the Hanson Aggregates property Saturday along Buena Vista Creek on the Carlsbad-Oceanside border just south of Highway 78 and west of College Boulevard, as a company spokesman explains plans for its reclamation. (Photo by Bill Wechter - staff photographer) 
Buena Vista Creek runs through the Hanson Aggregates property. An old "No Trespassing" sign can be seen submerged in the creek. (Photo by Bill Wechter - staff photographer) 
Hanson Aggregates consultant Ann Gunter explains to Patty Zadra, center, a neighbor of the project, and Karen Merrill of the conservation group Preserve Calavera, some specifics of the creek reclamation plans. (Photo by Bill Wechter - staff photographer) CARLSBAD ---- Michael Taliana seemed surprised at the bubbling creek he encountered when he toured the Hanson Aggregates quarry Saturday.
"This creek is just amazing," he said, looking down at Buena Vista Creek, as it gurgled over granite rocks just west of El Salto Falls. "If they clean this up, this could be a beautiful place for families. This could be a beautiful place to make a park."
Hanson invited its neighbors and interested environmental groups to tour its 104-acre property Saturday, giving them an up-close view of the former rock quarry and the creek that soon will be reclaimed after 35 years of rock mining and more than a decade of subsequent concrete and asphalt recycling.
A draft reclamation plan for the property is available for public review and comment. The comment period ends Nov. 21, and copies of the plan can be found at city libraries in Carlsbad and Oceanside.
Bill Berger, Hanson's reclamation plan manager, was there Saturday to drive groups of visitors through the quarry, stopping to look at the creek in various locations. He said Hanson wanted to give folks a better understanding of the property's current condition.
"It's easier to imagine things that are in the plan if you have seen it with your own eyes," Berger said.
Hanson employees pointed out long lines of wood stakes pounded into the ground along the creek's steep banks. The stakes, they said, indicate the top and bottom of new sloped banks to be created for the creek. Pointing to an orange stake just east of a small bridge over the creek, Berger noted that grading work will not get too close to El Salto Falls, a spectacular natural waterfall next to the Quarry Creek shopping center at College Boulevard and Highway 78.
"The grading stops right there," Berger said. "It will not go any closer to the falls. That's as far as we can go."
Over the last two years, environmental groups have decried the shopping center's proximity to the falls, saying developers should never have been allowed to build so close.
When the reclamation plan for Buena Vista Creek came out in September, some people said they were disappointed that all restoration options call for significant alteration of the creekbed, from scraping and grading banks to adding multiple rock "drop structures" in the creek itself. Others were irked that the plan will fill in areas on either side of the creek, creating 60 acres of flat land. Hanson has already sold an option to McMillan Co. to build more than 600 homes on the property after it has been reclaimed.
Karen Merrill, a member of Preserve Calavera, an environmental group that has taken the lead in trying to turn the Hanson property into a park, said she simply did not understand why the company could not simply leave the creek alone. But she said Saturday's visit opened her eyes. She saw that the creek, as it is now, is confined and constricted by concrete and boulders designed to prevent erosion during decades of mining.
"I guess I didn't realize that they had already done such extensive work to keep it constrained," Merrill said.
Though she still disagrees with the plans to build houses on the property, Merrill said, she was generally impressed with Hanson's plans to reclaim the creek.
"It has to be reclaimed," she said.
Don Christiansen, a Carlsbad Realtor active in environmental debates, also toured the property Saturday. Like Merrill, he said touring the property gave him a better understanding of why so much grading and rock are necessary.
Though he also dreams of a park with walking and biking trails from El Salto Falls west all the way to the beach, Christiansen said, he understands that reclamation must occur on a property that is mostly bare dirt today.
"At this point in time, it seems like they (Hanson) are working in good faith and have a viable plan that could be fine-tuned," he said.
Brad Roth, project manager for the Cottonwood Creek Conservancy in Encinitas, said he agreed with the basics of the reclamation plan. But he said he would like to see Hanson include better public access, perhaps in the form of a hiking trail, in its plans.
"Right now, (the plan) doesn't really take into account that it might be a park someday," Roth said. "If you're thinking about a park, you might put more attention on aesthetics and accessibility."
Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com.
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Oh brother wrote on Nov 8, 2008 10:07 PM:This so-called reclamation plan, while having to be done, does NOT have to include many of the various features that will impact the creek. The only reason for those is so Carlsbad can build houses. Then they will ask Oceanside for access from the the Walmart shopping center. More burdens on our roads while Carlsbad gets all the taxes. That just doesn't wash with me at all!
Hey brother wrote on Nov 9, 2008 5:58 AM:Oceanside should barricade off the end of road in Wal Mart like Carlsbad did to us with College Blvd. Taketh what you giveth.
Frank wrote on Nov 9, 2008 6:46 AM:As anyone noticed we are in the beginning stages of a recession. Further, it is a recession that might last 10+ years. Unemployment might reach 10 %, home values are crashing, and they want to build more homes. At this point, a park would be perfect and would actually improve the quality of life for those currently living in the area.
Where do I go to support the preservation effort?
Yoinks wrote on Nov 9, 2008 8:23 AM:Hey let's tell owners of private land that you want them to turn it into a park.
If you want it as a park, buy it and do it yourself, don't put your burdensome wishes on someone else. The economy is tough right now and folks are looking at taking away valuable assets from companies.
And the enviomentalist that was quoted who had fought against the company was priceless.
"...said she simply did not understand why the company could not simply leave the creek alone. But she said Saturday's visit opened her eyes..."
What this means is that you don't know what you're talking about. I would be embarassed to be quoted like that!
Dont wrote on Nov 9, 2008 11:08 AM:Dont to Yoinks,
Good on ya'- you are correct. Hanson like most other stewards of reclaimed land have the most to gain in improving the after stage of the land they work. Some become fish hatcheries, golf courses, parks, shopping centers, even living spaces for 'environmentalists' as well as city dwellers. No group has the market cornered on good planning or for that matter stupidity and short sightedness.
While special interests complain to well run companies such as Hanson, they should put their dubious efforts to improving the Tri-City Hospital Board's dysfunction and work to improve the possibility to rebuild it, as the need will increase as things get worse. My personal expectation is that those factions are the first to expect service in times of crisis. Too bad pressures put on needed materials suppliers and infrastructure builders price projects out of all taxpayers bounds. Yes, I blame 'special interest groups' for bollixing up the processes which we rely to keep communities working! As person who likes the sound of machinery performing, paying the right entity, allowing the owner of property to utilize it, bringing in a project on-budget and on-time, also do not appreciate dysfunction, greed or collusion in political circles. At least take a few more tours to gather your facts, before espousing your brand of 'environmentalism'. Yoinks, you said it, I can only expand on it.
Interesting wrote on Nov 9, 2008 1:34 PM:I heard McMillan, who owns the option, went bankrupt? Anyone know for sure? And Hanson's would be really smart to use this for mitigation land. They'd get a big tax credit and would be heroes!
Yoinks wrote on Nov 9, 2008 6:56 PM:Well said Dont. I think that now that the gravy days are over a lot more people are starting to realize that being a steward of the land has economic impacts. I think the coming years are going to bring back engineering, economics and real science to reclamation and land use planning.
Turn it into wrote on Nov 9, 2008 7:39 PM:a park and who then pays to maintain it? Public tax dollars? I don't think so, not in this economy! Yoinks is right, let a private party purchase the property, turn it into a park and deal with the costs of liability, plus keeping it maintained, clean and safe. They can charge admission.
Jay wrote on Nov 10, 2008 8:22 AM:Wow, you people are sure an optimistic bunch. Plahhh.
Have you been to Lake Calavera. I can't imagine that that place doesn't have an admission price. If it was owned by the likes of you people, it probably would.
We have dwindling resources here in the San Marcos, Vista, Oceanside, Carlsbad area. Things continue to be built up with little thought in the aesthetics of the area, we are beginning to look like Long Beach. We need more quite places for people to get out and walk around a bit, for kids to ride there bikes. North County use to be this place where undeveloped land abound.
Governments dictate land use in the their. The gov't is created by you and me. And if Hanson and McMillian is forced to create a little bit of aesthetic land use, then so be it.
I actually like wrote on Nov 10, 2008 9:19 AM:the idea of a private park that charges admission. It would probably be a lot nicer than those that are open to the general public.
deanz wrote on Nov 10, 2008 1:44 PM:why are people so surprised that they want to develope this piece of land? It's a simple formula: buy land on the outskirts of town (I bet the quarry has owned this land a long, long time), use it as a quarry, then sell the graded land to a developer. Have you been to Mission Valley lately? After the quarries bought the land from the farmers who did they sell it to?
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