Quarry Operating Without a Permit : Violations: The gravel firm’s authorization to operate expired in late 1986, but it waited two years to file for renewal, which has not been approved.

A gravel company near Moorpark with a decade-long history of violating quarrying regulations has operated for more than three years without a permit, county documents show.

Blue Star Ready Mix, which has raised the ire of its neighbors on Happy Camp Road, mines about 800,000 cubic yards of gravel a year at its quarry and concrete-mixing plant. The company, one of the largest of Ventura County’s 30 rock quarries, is bordered by a cluster of residences.

The company’s operating permit expired in November, 1986, and it waited two years to file for renewal, county officials said. The renewal has not been approved.

“Their permit has technically expired,” said Robert Laughlin, a county planning supervisor who manages the commercial and industrial land-use section.

The number of legal and environmental studies required for Blue Star’s new permit have caused so many delays that it “has introduced a tremendous amount of confusion among the agencies involved,” Laughlin said. “There’s a tremendous cloud over the whole thing.”

During an inspection of the quarry in September, Planning Department officials found that Blue Star had expanded its operations without getting permits to do so.

The company built three illegal buildings, added a parking lot and opened a portable concrete-batch plant, documents show.

The company also failed to file an accurate reclamation plan for land that was quarried, officials said. State law requires gravel companies to restore quarried land to its original condition.

Also, the company has operated after allowed hours since 1980, county officials said.

Officials closed Blue Star’s illegal buildings and wrote the company a warning letter, but no other action will be taken pending a Planning Commission review of the violations in July, said Todd Collart, who supervises zoning and permits for the Planning Department.

Blue Star officials say their quarry has had more than its share of scrutiny during the past three years because of complaints from four or five neighbors who live in the rural community north of Moorpark.

Company spokesman John Newton said Blue Star “is under a tremendous microscope,” yet inspectors have not found any serious violations.

“The county’s not having any heartburn over it,” Newton said.

Complaints against Blue Star date back to 1978, two years after it began operating, county records show.

In October, 1978, planning officials found that Blue Star owners needed to complete a reclamation plan for the quarry. Two years later, the company filed a plan that county officials say is still incomplete.

In 1980, inspectors found that Blue Star employees were working after the company’s 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. operating hours.

“Blue Star was notified by letter dated Aug. 7, 1980, that all operations conducted on the site after 6 p.m. would have to be discontinued within 30 days,” said a letter addressed to Newton from Bruce Smith, then-supervisor of zoning and permits.

But neighbors complain that trucks continue to travel in and out of the plant after legal hours.

Newton acknowledged that Blue Star has violated its operating hours in the past, but said “that’s not the case today.”

Some trucks occasionally return after-hours because of mechanical breakdowns on the road or unavoidable delays at work sites, he said.

County officials say the quarry risks legal action by continuing to operate past 6 p.m.

“We’ve maintained since the early 1980s that they’re not allowed to do that,” Collart said.

But catching a violation has proved difficult, Collart said.

“We can’t stake it out 24 hours a day,” he said.

Even if approved, a new permit may limit traffic on two-lane Happy Camp Road, which residents say is beyond its capacity.

Blue Star’s original permit issued in November, 1976, indicates that traffic on the road would average 170 truck trips per day.

Today, trips have increased to nearly 1,200, according to a traffic study conducted in April by an engineering firm hired by one of the residents. Residents say trucks roll past their houses nearly every half-minute, 12 hours a day, six days a week.

The din caused by caravans of trucks coming into and leaving Blue Star exceeds rural noise levels, generating as much noise as a busy city street, according to a 1988 California Department of Transportation study.

“It’s like standing under a roller coaster at Magic Mountain,” said Tom Schleve, 43, who lives nearby. “It’s been a strain on us emotionally.”

Excessive truck traffic caused one quarry to be closed last year. Ventura County supervisors revoked Somis Sand & Rock’s operating permit after residents who live on two-lane Balcom Canyon Road complained.

Somis Sand & Rock, which stopped operations in March, was a much smaller quarry with fewer trucks. Residents in the area say the trucks made about 300 round trips a day.

A 1987 county public works report indicates that the high volume of truck traffic from Blue Star would accelerate the deterioration of Happy Camp Road by eight to 10 years. The trucks contribute to 61% of the traffic on the road.

Because the company is outside Moorpark’s city limits, it cannot be required to pay for repairs, Councilwoman Eloise Brown said.

“You could contribute $100,000 to Moorpark, and you wouldn’t pay for the damage to roads,” Brown said.

Under the gravel company’s original permit, truck traffic on Happy Camp Road is not limited, Blue Star’s Newton said. The company runs a maximum of 500 round-trip deliveries a day, he said.

Officials at Blue Star maintain that the quarry was built before the neighboring houses and that residents such as Schleve exaggerate to county officials.

Schleve, who has owned his property for nine years, moved onto it three years ago. Soon afterward, Schleve began to complain to county officials that the number of trucks had increased from the time he purchased his ranch.

“This has been three years worth of hell,” Newton said. “There are 150 jobs threatened because of this guy’s antics.”

Schleve and his wife, Pat, said they have records to prove that they have a problem.

“The frustration is the county expects the homeowner to provide them with the proof,” Schleve said.

The couple became sleuths in their quest to document their problems with Blue Star, carrying videotape equipment during stakeouts.

They have a library of 20 videotapes and 10 audiotapes recording Blue Star trucks leaving the plant before 6 a.m. and running stop signs, they said. The Schleves also said they videotaped Blue Star workers operating equipment at 10:30 p.m. on a Friday.

They hired an aerial photographer to take pictures of the Blue Star site. The couple spent nearly $20,000 on traffic studies and legal expenses.

Since the Schleves launched their crusade against Blue Star, they have persuaded other neighbors to join the fight.

Lynne Cook, 50, a horse breeder who lives across the street from the Schleves, said some of the buildings on her 10-acre ranch have foundations built with Blue Star concrete.

But since truck traffic began to increase, fewer riders have boarded horses at her Triple L Double K Ranch and business has decreased, Cook said. She plans to move to Arizona after selling her property.

“This is supposed to be a rural residential area and in the last three years, it’s turned into a commercial area,” Cook said. “Moorpark is ruined for me and what I want to do.”