Excavation? Not in Their Backyard

Before Mike Kunce had his $2-million dream house built adjacent to a field in Claremont, he asked city officials about potential uses for the land.

He was told it could become a park, golf course or wildlife preserve. What he didn’t know was that two companies held leases on the land and planned to mine it.

Two years later, Kunce is among dozens of Claremont residents trying to keep the companies from extracting sand, gravel and crushed stone within view of their backyards.

“It’s not gonna happen,” said Kunce, 56, who used his life savings to build his 8,000-square-foot home. “If it does, there will be a ‘For Sale’ sign in front of my house. I’m not going to live here.”

Vulcan Materials Co. and Holliday Rock Co. plan to mine about 50 million tons of material over 10 to 20 years. They contend that reaping the area’s resources is essential to keeping up with the region’s construction demands.

But the prospect of having a mining field as a neighbor has left residents of this Los Angeles County community of multimillion-dollar estates, tract homes and 1950s cottages concerned about the extra dust and decreasing property values. Environmentalists fear losing rare plant habitat. Opponents have formed the Claremonters Against Strip Mining to fight the proposed projects.

At issue is the future of 433 acres owned by the nonprofit Pomona Valley Protective Assn., which was formed in 1909 to ensure that Claremont, Pomona, La Verne and Upland retain their natural water resources. The area’s porous land acts as a sponge, allowing storm water to seep into underground basins. Association officials say the six pits that would remain after the land is excavated would aid in their water collection.

For the last 33 years, Alabama-based Vulcan Materials and Holliday Rock, based in Upland, have held mining leases on the land. Both companies are mining in Upland on association-owned parcels that are largely depleted.

To begin excavation, the companies need the Claremont Planning Commission to amend the city’s land use and development code to include mining as a permitted use. But earlier this year, the commission and the City Council rejected the projects, saying the mining would cause environmental damage and harm residents’ quality of life.

“It would be horrendous both in noise and dust, to say nothing of the aesthetics of it,” Claremont Mayor Sandra Baldonado said. “We are strongly opposing it.”

But the mining companies aren’t giving up. Vulcan filed a lawsuit against the city in June to overturn its decision. Holliday Rock officials say they’re waiting to see the outcome of the suit before deciding what to do.

The impact of mining the parcel will be minimal, said Steve Cortner, vice president of resources for Vulcan.

He said noise levels and truck traffic would remain the same because the mining would be done far enough away from homes and the processing would be done on an adjacent site in Upland.

About 15 years ago, the state’s Mining and Geology Board identified 15 regionally significant mineral resource areas, said Mark Oldfield, spokesman for the California Department of Conservation, which oversees the board. Claremont, Upland and surrounding areas were among those designated.

“The cost for transportation of the very heavy material is high,” Oldfield said. Having minerals available locally “makes it a lot less expensive to build things like roads.”

At the time, these mineral-rich areas were on the outskirts of communities. But in recent years, the population has expanded toward the resources.

Dr. Marla Law Abrolat, a local pediatrician, opposes the mining proposals, arguing that the dust kicked up by extracting rock would harm the lungs of children who live nearby.

“Children are more susceptible because they are outside more, playing and breathing harder,” said Abrolat, who has a 9-year-old daughter and a 6-year-old son and lives four houses from the parcel. “This is not what we chose for our families. The impacts are just too great to justify.”

Environmentalists oppose the mining plans because, they say, the excavations would destroy the alluvial fan sage scrub growing in the area’s foothills.

“It doesn’t seem that this is the only place to get the materials by a long shot,” said Dan Silver, executive director of the Endangered Habitats League Inc. “There’s no justification for destroying this extremely rare habitat.”

But Cortner of Vulcan said the companies planned to replace some of the sage scrub. He also argues that hauling rock, gravel and crushed stone from outlying areas would be more harmful to the environment because of trucks’ diesel fuel emissions.

“There’s people who don’t want a Wal-Mart near them either,” Cortner said. “In a perfect world, no neighborhood should have an industry within miles and miles of it.”