More rock quarries in county's future

<p>While Forestville residents are mumbling about rock-toting quarry trucks rumbling through their town, plans for four more new or expanded quarries will spread the grumbling around Sonoma County.</p><p>A new county government report on rock mining says proposals for quarries on Lakeville Highway and Stony Point, Roblar and Mark West Springs roads are in the works.</p><p>Rock quarry mining is certain to be on the rise as demand grows for different grades of rock that are required for making concrete and asphalt and for laying down roadbed. The needs are driven by housing and highway construction, concludes the survey by the county's Permit and Resource Management Department.</p><p>Officials in the aggregate industry say the county administration's annual assessment supports their view that a 10-year-old blueprint called the Aggregate Resource Mining plan is missing a major piece.</p><p>"The whole point of the ARM plan was to transfer rock production from the Russian River to the quarries," said Bill Williams, general manager of Blue Rock Quarry in Forestville. "Well, we are phasing out the river, but we aren't complementing that with putting more quarries in service."</p><p>Others, like Mike Reilly, the supervisor who represents the west county, dispute the rock mining industry's contention that more rock quarries are needed throughout the county.</p><p>"Aggregate production rises in relation to population increases and Sonoma County's will be pretty flat," Reilly said. "I think we are approaching build-out in terms of roads and we are looking at maintaining them instead of producing more of them."</p><p>Release of the county's annual rock mining report comes as two Forestville quarries encounter resistance from residents.</p><p>Last week, supervisors approved expansion of Canyon Rock Quarry, but made no change in its annual production limit of 750,000 tons. Reilly said he voted against expansion because he thought environmental review of effects on nearby Green Valley Creek was inadequate and because he felt the board majority gave Canyon Rock more expansion capacity than necessary.</p><p>Two days later, the county's Planning Commission began hearings on Blue Rock Quarry's request to expand production capacity to 600,000 tons.</p><p>"This is a little community that is getting hammered," Reilly said.</p><p>The report provides details on rock mining trends that are certain to be at the core of looming debates over quarry expansions.</p><p>Trends include:</p><p>Mining in pits along Russian River terraces is grinding to a halt.</p><p>However, the report notes the issue will linger past last April's deadline for terrace mining cessation because Syar Industries, the last company mining pits near the river, is citing increased demand for high-quality rock for concrete as its reason for wanting more time to extract its allotted amount.</p><p>Reduced mining in terraces, as well as in the riverbed, will lead to more pressure to extract rock from quarries.</p><p>Mining rock from within the stream of the Russian River has plummeted dramatically from an annual average of 992,000 tons in the 1980s to 90,000 tons last year.</p><p>New or expanded quarry operations are likely to prompt opposition from neighbors, along the lines of Forestville residents'.</p><p>"There are still doubts as to how much rock these quarries can provide," said David Schiltgen, the county planning official who wrote the annual rock report. "One way to reduce the effect on Forestville is to consider applications from these other quarries."</p><p>Quarries at Lakeville Highway and Stony Point, Roblar and Mark West Springs roads are in various stages of environmental review by county planners. Over the past few years, quarries near southern Sonoma, southern Petaluma and Bodega Bay have closed, largely because they are considered mined out of quality rock.</p><p>"Aggregate is not a welcome land use by people living around a quarry, but it is necessary to our quality of life," said Williams, whose company also has a pending application for the Mark West Quarry near Calistoga Road.</p><p>With reduced river mining and quarry mining supply running behind demand, more rock will be imported.</p><p>County planners estimate that about 17 percent of the 3.8 million tons of rock used in the county last year was imported by truck or barge.</p><p>Sonoma County's current supply of road-base rock will last less than five years, with existing reserves of quality rock suitable for concrete predicted to last less than half that long.</p>