EVERETT — Following months of public health concerns and county code violations next door to an elementary school, the owners of Mountain Loop Mine’s Everett Aggregate Yard listed the property for sale this week.
A “for sale” sign was visible at the property, owned by OMA Construction, at 2615 Center Road on Wednesday. The sign lists the names of three Colliers real estate agents, but the property still wasn’t listed online as of Thursday afternoon. Colliers’ Bellevue and Seattle offices didn’t respond to The Daily Herald’s phone calls Thursday.
“None of us knew that was in the works,” Mukilteo School District spokesperson Diane Bradford said.
OMA Construction did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Over a year ago, Fairmount Elementary School staff and children started reporting headaches and coughing fits they attributed to noise and dust from the site. During school hours, teachers and students heard constant scraping and banging, as dump trucks loaded and unloaded mounds of gravel, rock and sand at the yard about 50 feet from some classrooms. At full operation, the site generated 59 to 90 decibels of sound. For elementary school kids, teachers and staff, it was a massive distraction.
“They’re refugees coming from war-torn countries, and they’re hearing the sounds back there,” teacher Melissa Reed said about the school’s students, when a Herald reporter previously visited the school. “It scares them.”
After OMA Construction started operations at the gravel yard, school staff said they were changing the school’s HVAC system filters sometimes on a monthly basis. Filters can usually last three months.
OMA Vice President Brandon Akers had offered to build a “noise wall” along the site’s north boundary to dampen noise and dust. Still, Akers asserted operations weren’t emitting dust or exceeding county noise standards.
In February, Snohomish County Planning and Development Services found the yard in violation of county noise standards and issued an emergency order that called for “all use and operations on the site” to stop. OMA Construction also hadn’t obtained proper permits for the site since it opened in April 2023.
County officials and Mukilteo School District representatives argued yard workers continued parking, staging and dispatching trucks at the site, despite the February emergency order.
In April, Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Millie Judge officially prohibited OMA from using the site, unless it secured a land-disturbing activity permit from the county, as well as permits for wastewater discharge and sand-and-gravel work from the state Department of Ecology.
“It’ll be interesting,” Bradford said, “to see how the process continues.”
Ta’Leah Van Sistine: 425-339-3460; taleah.vansistine@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @TaLeahRoseV.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
Gallery
