Quarry’s Neighbors Sue to Shut It Down : Traffic: When the county granted a permit to the concrete-mixing company, only 120 daily truck trips were expected. The legal action alleges that there are now 800.

A Moorpark couple is suing the Ventura County Planning Department in an attempt to shut down a quarrying operation they believe has made a noisy highway out of a rural road.

The lawsuit filed Friday in Ventura County Superior Court by Pat and Tom Schleve seeks to force county planners to close Blue Star Ready Mix Inc., one of the largest rock quarry and concrete-mixing companies in the county, until it receives a new permit.

Blue Star’s permit expired in 1986 and a new application is pending.

“The county has said in the past they haven’t been able to regulate these quarries,” Tom Schleve said. “The operator has no intention of operating within the limits and conditions of his original permit.”

The dispute over the county’s right to regulate quarrying operations resulted in the filing of an unrelated lawsuit Friday against the county by the owner of a sand and gravel quarry northwest of Moorpark on Balcom Canyon Road.

Richard D. Hughes is suing the county and the Board of Supervisors for their November, 1989, revocation of Somis Sand & Rock Inc.’s permit to operate a sand and gravel quarry.

The lawsuit alleges that Hughes lost income of more than $9,100 a month when the county revoked the permit. Hughes’ lawsuit demands more than $2 million in damages plus his lost income.

Supervisors revoked Somis’ permit after neighbors complained about excessive truck traffic on the two-lane road, a situation that neighbors of the Blue Star plant are protesting.

The Schleves’ longstanding dispute with the county dates back two years, when they first began to complain about excessive noise from trucks making deliveries to and from the Blue Star plant on Happy Camp Road.

When the county Planning Department granted a 10-year operating permit to Blue Star in 1976, traffic on the two-lane road was expected to average only 120 truck trips a day.

The Schleves, who own a house less than a mile from the Blue Star plant, said in the lawsuit that traffic has now increased to 800 truck trips a day, and noise and fumes have also increased.

The company’s 150 employees contribute to additional traffic on the rural road.

In June, county officials told the Schleves that the lack of a permit prevented the county from restricting Blue Star’s operations. A new permit has not been granted because of processing delays.

James Sandoval, president of Blue Star Ready Mix, said company officials met this week with the county to attempt to reduce truck traffic.

However, he would not comment on the lawsuit, except to say that Blue Star was never required to limit the number of trucks making deliveries each day.

“We have continued operating under the requirements of the old permit and have done nothing that would be illegal as far as expansion is concerned,” he said.

Sandoval blamed delays in processing the company’s permit on the county and its requirement that a full-fledged environmental report be conducted.

Blue Star last year paid the county $46,000 to cover the cost of the report, but the scope of the study has since been expanded, delaying completion, he said.

County officials acknowledge that they have allowed Blue Star to continue business indefinitely while a new permit is pending.

“Without a permit, we don’t have that force of law behind us,” said Todd Collart, who supervises zoning and permits for the Planning Department. “If we’ve not been acting properly, that’s what this lawsuit will decide.”

Frank O. Sieh, litigation supervisor for the county counsel’s office, said state law is unclear on how long a quarry operator’s old permit is valid when it is awaiting a new one.

County officials also have been reluctant to shut down the plant for economic reasons, Sieh said. Officials are concerned about the effect that closing the plant would have on concrete buyers in the county and on Blue Star’s employees, he said.

“The residents of the community have a legitimate concern about traffic,” he said. But, he added, “the county is not blind to the fact the operator is a large employer.”