Quarry Foes Win 1st Round of Azusa Fight

Like most of the others, Carol Montano really didn’t expect the outcome.

For five months she and other members of an Azusa citizens group and residents and officials from neighboring Duarte had pressured the Azusa Planning Commission to recommend that Azusa Rock Co.’s 32-year-old quarry permit be revoked.

Going into last week’s meeting, Montano said she thought the pleas might have fallen on deaf ears. Similarly, officials from Duarte and Azusa Rock predicted the commission would fashion a compromise that would please no one.

Different Reception

“I was leery,” Montano said. “When we talked to the Planning Commission in May, the comment I received then was, ‘We can’t do that,’ and ‘It’s too hard to close down because it’s been going on so long.’ ”

But without dissent, the commission recommended Wednesday that the City Council revoke the permit to mine Fish Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains behind the city. The council will probably consider the recommendation at its Oct. 3 meeting.

For Montano and others, it was a pleasant surprise. For Azusa Rock, it could be fatal.

“I think they made an emotional decision, not based on the facts,” said Azusa Rock President Tom Sheedy after the vote. “I don’t think they looked at the merits of the information presented.”

Quarry Attorney Confident

Attorney Glenn R. Watson, who represented Azusa Rock, said he was confident the council would disregard the recommendation or that the courts would overturn a permit revocation.

“They’ll never make it stick,” Watson said about the commission’s decision.

“It’s a whole new ballgame before the council,” Sheedy said.

Montano, although elated with the recommendation, agreed nothing has been resolved.

“This is like Round I,” she said. “We will proceed with Round II with the City Council.”

In May, the council unanimously directed the Planning Commission to consider revoking the permit. Since then, two new council members, Harry L. Stemrich and Tony D. Naranjo, have been elected. Council members have been instructed by the city attorney not to comment.

The commission began its hearings in April when Azusa Community Development Director Roy E. Bruckner reported that the quarry could be closed because it was a public nuisance and had violated the original permit conditions.

Rock from the quarry has been used in numerous public works projects. The company holds a $2.5-million contract for bedding for the Los Angeles Metro Rail project, according to Kirst officials.

Sheedy has said that between 4 million and 8 million tons of rock have been removed from the 190-acre quarry since 1960. The company has 16 employees.

During the protracted public hearings, Azusa Rock and Duarte presented conflicting testimony from experts on the quarry and its effect on the environment.

In the end, the commission recommended revoking the permit after finding that the quarry operation threatened public health and that Azusa Rock had abandoned operations at various times, a violation of the permit’s original conditions.

The commission found that problems have been created by airborne dust, truck traffic and noise from rock crushing and gravel trucks. An unstable hillside could cause landslides, and the hillside’s appearance has been harmed by an 800-foot scar, the commission also concluded.

Watson responded that dust problems stem from trucks owned by the quarry’s customers. The quarry’s experts also testified that Azusa Rock was not responsible for air and noise pollution, an assertion disputed by Duarte’s experts.

Azusa Rock was issued three citations by the South Coast Air Quality Management District before 1986 for dust emissions but has not been cited since, according to the district.

According to the planning staff’s most recent report to the commission, aerial photographs taken of the site five times since 1970 indicate that quarry operations had ceased. The report noted that Azusa Rock could not prove the quarry was in continual use, citing the company’s lack of documentation before 1986, when Azusa Rock was formed as a subsidiary of Kirst Construction Inc.

Because records from the quarry and Kirst Construction operations were commingled, there is no documentation that the quarry was in continual operation before 1986, Sheedy said. Even though operations at the quarry have sometimes been slow, they have never stopped, he said.

“To say we have abandoned that property is utterly ridiculous,” he said.

The commission voted 6 to 0 to recommend revoking the permit. One commissioner who had missed the early hearings abstained.

Commission Chairman Mike Falletta said there was a clear-cut case for revocation.

“What was key to me was when you looked at the original use permit, there were several conditions that they were no longer in compliance with,” he said.

In August, Azusa’s planning staff suggested a compromise to allow Azusa Rock to continue mining under 12 conditions that would have reduced quarry operations. The proposal was rejected by all sides.

Duarte officials, including Marlene A. Fox, an attorney hired by the city to represent it in the fight, said the best they expected from the commission was a recommendation to approve the compromise. The exception was Duarte Mayor John Hitt.

“I’m not surprised,” he said after the vote. “But I’m obviously elated. The commission could see with its eyes, and hear with its ears . . . that the quarry wasn’t good for the residents.”

During Wednesday’s meeting, Montano presented a petition with the names of 600 Azusa residents opposed to the quarry operation who “were more than happy to sign.”