Panel OKs Gravel Mine Expansion

Worried about adding still more truck traffic to the roads north of Moorpark, the Ventura County Planning Commission on Thursday decided to allow a local gravel mine to expand but sharply limited the number of trucks the operation can use.

Commissioners voted unanimously to allow Transit Mixed Concrete Co. to mine another 42 acres of scrub-covered land at its facility north of Broadway and Walnut Canyon Road.

But after area residents complained of the noise and pollution already generated by trucks hauling gravel and sand from the site, commissioners voted to cut the number of truck trips to and from the mine to a maximum 590 per day, less than half the average of 1,328 trips the company initially projected.

“To put that many additional vehicles on that road, I don’t think that’s wise,” said the Rev. Johnie Carlisle, one of the commissioners.

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Commissioners also rejected the company’s proposal to build an asphalt plant at the facility and limited the length of the company’s mining permit to 20 years. Transit Mixed officials had asked for 50 years.

Tom Powell, plant manager at the facility, said the company may appeal the commission’s decision to the county Board of Supervisors.

“Better that than go out of business,” Powell said.

The vote capped a nearly 10-year process to renew the mine’s conditional use permit. Mining began at the site in 1948 and continued for decades under a string of owners. Although the facility’s last permit expired in 1986, workers have continued digging aggregate materials--gravel and sand--from the site under a compliance agreement with the county.

Several of the mine’s neighbors told the commission Thursday that they do not want to see the facility close. But they also don’t want the smells that an asphalt plant would generate. The current level of truck exhaust, they said, was bad enough.

“The diesel fumes blow right onto my property,” said Pat Schleve, who with her husband once unsuccessfully appealed the company’s compliance agreement. “I have a lovely patio. I’d like to have breakfast out there sometime, or have friends over for lunch. Can’t do it.”

Schleve, who raises horses, also worried that the diesel exhaust was causing birth defects in her foals.

Against those concerns, commissioners weighed what Transit Mixed representatives said was a genuine need for the additional material the expansion could provide. A 1993 report by the state conservation department’s Division of Mines and Geology found that aggregate materials in western Ventura County mines were almost exhausted. The mines in the Simi Valley area could supply the county’s needs for only 20 years, the report said.

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County planners also noted that, without the mine’s expansion, more of the gravel needed for local construction projects would have to be hauled in from other areas, resulting in higher prices and air pollution.

“Without the project, we’re going to be receiving aggregates from Palmdale and other areas,” County Planner Lou Merzario said. “That, in itself, has a significant impact.”

Commissioners agreed that the mine should remain open, but with restrictions. Commissioner Michael Wesner, who is also a Moorpark mayoral candidate, said the concerns about truck traffic were particularly important considering that the Moorpark Unified School District plans to build an elementary school just a few miles down Walnut Canyon Road from the mine.