By Warren Cornwall
Herald Writer
A proposal to mine millions of tons of gravel from land east of Gold Bar has nearby cities concerned about truck traffic on the already crowded U.S. 2 highway.
Cadman Inc., which now operates two mines in the county, wants to dig up 230 acres of forest land 3 miles east of Gold Bar. To do that, the county must change the land’s zoning designation and grant a conditional use permit.
The mine would fill the hunger for gravel in east Snohomish County, brought on by housing developments, road projects and other construction, said Robin Hansen, the company’s director of operations services for Western Washington.
"This deposit should fill our eastern Snohomish County gravel needs," she said.
But three cities — Gold Bar, Sultan and Granite Falls, have urged Cadman to withdraw its application until the county completes a countywide plan to regulate mining.
Gold Bar Mayor Ken Foster looks at U.S. 2, the highway that runs through the middle of the small town, and worries about more gravel trucks rumbling by.
"Nobody, I think, wishes to have one of those gravel pits in their backyard," he said.
Concerns about traffic and the environment have dogged recent efforts to open gravel pits in East Snohomish County.
A gravel pit near Granite Falls sparked years of fights between the mining company and citizens before it opened in 1999. An outcry from Sultan residents forced the state to temporarily shelve plans to lease land for a gravel pit earlier this year.
Cadman hopes to quell such concerns by offering to make the mine more environmentally friendly and to help local cities lobby for funding to improve U.S. 2.
The proposal would set aside 380 acres to the south and west of the mine as a buffer for nearby Proctor Creek. That should lessen concerns about the impact to nearby streams, Hansen said. The mining would also happen on a plateau out of view of the highway, unlike an adjacent gravel pit that has operated for years.
Still, nearby resident Sallie Harrison worries the mine could harm local streams or groundwater that feeds her well. She lives in the Big Bend development, a rural neighborhood separated from the mine entrance by the highway and railroad.
"It’s going to be a big, ugly scar," said Harrison, who has lived there for four years.
The mine could produce as much as 37 million tons of gravel and sand over 25 years, according to Cadman documents. It’s impossible to know how much truck traffic that will generate until the company figures out how much of that material would be good enough to sell, and what kind of trucks could be a used, Hansen said. A standard gravel truck carries 32 tons. Traffic is a major concern, acknowledged Hansen. The company would conduct a detailed traffic analysis of how the added gravel trucks would affect nearby roads and would work to limit the impact, she said. The company is also looking at how affordable it would be to ship the gravel on a nearby railroad line.
If the highway becomes the main route, Hansen said local communities could benefit from Cadman’s political influence by working with the company to lobby for funding to improve the highway.
"I think this is a key opportunity for them to have access to the resources of a large corporation," she said.
Foster, however, questioned what good that would do, with money for road projects in short supply.
Granite Falls Mayor Floyd "Butch" DeRosia, in his letter urging Cadman to withdraw the plan, warned the current regulations "may not be in the best interest of the residents and travelers who use U.S. 2 nor ultimately for the companies that do the work."
Hansen, however, said the company has no intention of taking back its proposal. Cadman is reluctant to wait on proposed county regulations that are already in dispute, she said. She noted that some of the same cities have urged the county to scrap its draft regulations, arguing they are flawed.
Under the current application, Cadman will hire a consultant to study the project’s environmental impacts. That study would go through a series of public hearings before being completed. The county would then decide whether to issue the permit and change the zoning. Hearings might not be held until spring of 2003, with a final decision coming in early 2004, according to Cadman’s timeline.
You can call Herald Writer Warren Cornwall at 425-339-3463 or send e-mail to cornwall@heraldnet.com.
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