Gravel Mine Plan Cements Tension Among Growers

For the second time in three months, county officials are grappling with an issue that some residents say threatens the Santa Clara Valley’s pastoral charm with encroaching urbanization.

The Ventura County Planning Commission today will decide whether to approve a permit for the Sycamore Ranch Mine, a gravel strip-mining project proposed for a site 1 1/2 miles west of Fillmore. Any decision is expected to be appealed to the Board of Supervisors.

The Santa Clara Valley’s agricultural community has been through this drill before, and emotions continue to run high.

Two months ago, the county approved expanding the Toland Road Landfill between Santa Paula and Fillmore despite opposition from nearby landowners. The mining project being considered today is just two miles west of the landfill entrance on California 126 in the midst of orange and lemon groves.

What’s more, both Toland and Sycamore come in the wake of an unsuccessful fight residents waged against the county’s Todd Road Jail, which opened last year southwest of Santa Paula.

The issues surrounding Sycamore Ranch are almost identical to Toland’s: increased noise from more truck traffic on a notoriously dangerous highway; dust posing a potential threat to crop production; and fears of water contamination.

And once again, residents see the proposal to put an industry in their midst as eroding their way of life. To them, it’s a twist of the knife that the gravel from the mine would help perpetuate the urban environment of strip malls and asphalt, multiplexes and concrete they have sought to escape.

*

“I look at this as being used to pave over Ventura County, and I don’t want that,” said Clark Johnson, a grower who owns 100 acres that have been in his family since 1876 almost directly across the highway from the road to the proposed mine. “I don’t have a lot of good things to say about people who . . . go into a beautiful green orchard, rip it out, and turn it into a strip mine.”

But county planning staff has recommended approval of the project.

Mining would occur over 29 years on a 120-acre site that wouldn’t be visible from California 126. The digging would be conducted in two-acre blocks that would be reclaimed as citrus orchard once the gravel was removed, with no more than nine acres of ground disturbed at any one time. Days of operation would be limited to no more than 190 annually.

Indeed, the project is subject to 74 conditions of operation and more than 90 measures designed to ensure those conditions are met.

Some are unprecedented in Ventura County. For instance, the local Air Pollution Control District is requesting that the company spend $307,000 to develop a countywide program to reduce vehicle emissions. The idea is to offset the pollution caused by 144 trucks expected to load up at the mine daily and haul gravel to the company’s El Rio processing plant.

In addition, truck traffic would actually be worse on California 126 without the project, company officials say, because the most direct route to the nearest supply of gravel in Bakersfield is through the valley.

Contrary to residents’ worries, experts contend that the project wouldn’t affect agriculture.

The goal is for no dust to escape to nearby orchards. Moreover, test tree plantings have shown that removing rocks from the ground will improve tree growth. And a more efficient irrigation system would be installed to reduce water consumption on the site in the future.

*

Even county Agriculture Commissioner Earl McPhail has said he doesn’t believe the project poses a problem to farming.

The project has generated an outpouring of support, although critics say the company has done its part to orchestrate the effort by telling workers that 15 to 20 jobs could be lost if the project is not approved. Nonetheless, the county has received 341 letters in favor of the project, compared with fewer than 25 expressing opposition.

What’s more, the company that operates Sycamore Ranch--Southern Pacific Milling Co.--has won plaudits from the state and from environmental groups for its work reclaiming a mining site in the Ventura River.

Still, opponents are not placated, denouncing Milling’s picture of the mine’s impact as inaccurate or as outright fabrications.

“The damage from the aggregate industry is permanent, and we feel the trade-off is not worth it and we as taxpayers end up paying for the trade-off permanently,” said Joanne King, a Fillmore resident and spokeswoman for Stop Mining in Rural Fillmore, the informal group organized to oppose the project.

Mistrust lingers because of a much larger project Milling proposed in 1991 that was withdrawn in the face of community opposition, King said. Then there’s the negative connotation associated with strip-mining. Finally, there is the political baggage that precedes the project.

“There really isn’t anything we could do with our project to gain acceptance of it,” said Bill Berger, vice president of operations. “There’s a sense in the valley they get all the county’s problems dumped on them . . . and the sense is, now mining too.”

*

Company officials say Sycamore Ranch is necessary because the county is facing a gravel shortage.

Historically, most gravel has come from riverbeds. But environmental restrictions have largely ended that practice. As a result, rock prices have doubled and companies are scrambling to find new sources, Berger said.

Three proposed mines are in various stages of development in the county. One in Saticoy is on hold indefinitely because of state concerns over its proximity to drinking water supplies. Another quarry near Moorpark is seeking to renew its permit.

But Sycamore Ranch is furthest along in the regulatory review process.

“Technically, this is a sound project,” said associate county planner Julie Ward. “It’s a question of what the neighbors are feeling and experiencing.”

The meeting begins at 8:30 a.m. in the Board of Supervisors hearing room at the Ventura County Government Center.