Move to Truck Quarry Dirt Raises Cloud of Protest : Ventura: A businessman wants the soil used at landfills. But residents, fearing the dust may harm their health, threaten to strike again.

In the 1940s, there was hardly a ripple when a quarry operation opened west of Ventura and began excavating a ridge. Back then, the spot off Ventura Avenue was still country.

Today, the old Rocklite quarry and aggregate plant are silent. The rusted mining equipment and old buildings still stand like a ghost town, but homes, schools and businesses have sprouted all around them.

Now a Denver businessman is determined to remove dirt from the site again. However, area residents said he’s in for a fight. Decades ago, they fought to shut down the operation, claiming dust from it was jeopardizing their health. They’ll do it again, they said.

“It was a terrible situation,” said Doris Black, who still lives off Ventura Avenue. “People became ill. A friend who lived close by had to move.”

All that is history to Joseph Baird, who took over the quarry operation in 1983. He soon shut it down for economic reasons. He said that residents are riled up over nothing and that he isn’t trying to reopen a full-scale mining operation or produce aggregate-and-cement blocks as in the old days.

What he hopes to do is truck out mounds of clay dirt left over from the old mining operation near Stanley Avenue. With seven years left on his lease, he wants to sell dirt to the Ventura Regional Sanitation District to use as a cover at county landfills.

The district has already arranged to buy the dirt from another supplier in the county. On Sept. 25 the county Board of Supervisors denied Baird’s appeal that his site, just outside Ventura city lines, be considered as an additional source.

But Baird, former president of Occidental Petroleum Corp., isn’t giving up.

“I have every intention of pursuing it,” he said. “It’s inappropriate to discuss now what future action will be considered.”

Baird’s intentions stunned local officials as well as residents who thought the Rocklite quarry was dead.

“The city is quite concerned,” said Everett Millais, Ventura’s community development director. He cited noise, dust and truck traffic that would affect the surrounding neighborhood.

County officials are concerned too.

“There has been an extreme change in the neighborhood over the years and it’s not an appropriate use now,” said Supervisor Susan K. Lacey. De Anza Middle School sits below the site and houses are just hundreds of yards away. “I wish we had control to remove it from the area,” she said.

Baird said he has every right to operate the quarry. He has seven years left on his lease. He said the conditional permit granted operators in the 1940s is still valid, even though few, if any, conditions were imposed at that time.

During the quarry’s heyday in the 1960s, it yielded clay that was baked in kilns and turned into lightweight aggregate, which was added to cement to make special blocks used in the construction of Dodger Stadium as well as many of Southern California’s skyscrapers.

At the time, residents alleged the dust aggravated asthma, emphysema, bronchitis and other breathing disorders.

“People could see it,” said William Harrison, who lives at 152 Leighton Drive, about a quarter-mile from the operation. “It was killing plants.” Harrison, a chemist, recalled collecting dust samples on slides to study the particles.

“It affected people close by very badly,” said Harrison’s nephew, Bob Robey, who also lives on Leighton Drive. He predicted that residents would band together to fight any efforts to reactivate the quarry.

He said they are still peeved that the quarry site was never completely restored, and they fear Baird is trying to get a foot in the door for more intense activity there.

Baird said residents are needlessly stirring up memories of 30 years ago, long before his association with the plant. Air pollution regulations would apply today. Even so, his plan now is simply to truck out dirt from the hillside.

But that still worries residents. Dust from the plant has settled over the site, and excavating the dirt will stir it up into the air.

“It’s still harmful,” said Robey, who lives with his two sons.

Baird said he’s not aware of any evidence the previous operation caused health problems. “I can’t conceive of anything very dangerous. These are common materials.”

Controversy has dogged the quarry over the years. In the late 1970s, the previous quarry operator, Lightweight Processing Co., became embroiled in a lawsuit with the county when the firm tried to expand the operation up the ridge. The case was settled in 1980, establishing the company’s historic right to operate and setting parameters of use.

But Baird’s company, Ventura Aggregates, temporarily shut down the operation in 1984. It was no longer economical to operate an aggregate manufacturing plant, he said. However, simply selling the clay to landfills is economically justified.

By shutting down the quarry, Baird may have shut the door on future operations there.

If the county can prove the property was abandoned, Baird’s legal use is “out the window” and he would be subject to current rules, said county planner John Bencomo, who is researching the issue.

But Baird insists he never abandoned the operation and the right to operate is as good as ever. He said the county’s Air Pollution Control District recently renewed the quarry’s operating permit at a cost of $10,000. When economic conditions are right again, he hopes to reopen the aggregate operation.

He claims his plan to truck out clay to the landfill won’t disturb area residents. The dirt is in piles so it won’t require excavation, and dust won’t be a problem.

“It’s not a health hazard,” he said.

He said he could remove a year’s worth of cover for the sanitation district in one or two months. During that time, the company would schedule haul routes that avoid busy school times. It would post a crossing guard at Ventura Avenue.

Baird said that the possibility of a lawsuit against the county “is not an unreasonable conclusion.” County officials denied his appeal because of uncertainty over his operating rights, the possibility of a conflict between Baird and the quarry’s owner, Selby Realty Co., and the possible nuisance the operation might represent for nearby residents.

“That’s an unlawful taking of property,” he said.