Court Nullifies State Limit on Big Sur Mining

In a decision delivering a sharp setback to the California Coastal Commission and Big Sur environmentalists, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday unanimously ruled that a mining company is exempt from the state’s Coastal Protection Act because it is operating on federal land.

The 3-0 decision, reversing a ruling by U.S. District Judge William Schwarzer in San Francisco, gave the green light to the Granite Rock Co. of Watsonville to continue a major limestone mining operation on Pico Blanco, a mountain sometimes called the northernmost gateway to the Big Sur Country.

The decision had been fought by the state Coastal Commission and eight other states--Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Utah--where mining is a major industry.

The case, said Deputy State Atty. Gen. Linus Masouredis, who argued for commission jurisdiction over the mining operation, is “very important” because it “will severely hamper” a state’s ability “to impose environmentally protective conditions on mining on federal lands.”

Jess S. Jackson Jr., a San Francisco attorney who represented the firm, said the court correctly held that the state cannot “interfere with federal objectives” that attempt to balance the environmental needs of society against the country’s need for valuable minerals--in this case, white limestone.

Roy Gorman, chief counsel for the state Coastal Commission, said it was not yet clear whether the agency would appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the appellate decision is left to stand, he said, it would, in his view, “drastically limit states’ abilities” to control mining activity “on sensitive natural resources on federal land.”

Pico Blanco and its 3,709-foot white limestone peak are visible from California 1 about 20 miles south of Carmel.

In 1981, the firm began mining its mountain claim, located on U.S. Forest Service land in the Los Padres National Forest. The actual mining operation is on the backside of the mountain and is not visible from the coastal highway.

In 1983, the state Coastal Commission ruled that Granite Rock would have to obtain a state coastal permit to continue mining operations. The company then took the issue to court.

The appellate court ruled Wednesday, in effect, that the concept of allowing state Coastal Commission jurisdiction over mining on federal land “intrudes” into the sphere of federal authority.

“An independent state permit system to enforce state environmental standards would undermine the Forest Service’s own permit authority,” said Appellate Judge J. Clifford Wallace in writing the decision.

Limestone is a valuable mineral widely used in industry in a wide range of products from a whitener in toothpaste to concrete and plastics. Granite Rock attorney Jackson said the Pico Blanco deposit “is one of the highest grade limestone operations in the United States.”