Sonoma County imposes fee on rock companies

<p>Trucks carrying rock to construction projects will pay a 10-cent-a-ton road repair fee next year under an ordinance approved Tuesday by Sonoma County supervisors, who acknowledged they made no one in the aggregate industry happy with their decision.</p><p>Local rock and quarry companies must pay the new fee, but companies that truck or barge aggregate in from out-of-county won’t be charged because county officials believe they lack legal authority to do so.</p><p>“I recognize that not all are happy, which means that we probably did the right thing,” said board Chairman Paul Kelley.</p><p>He noted the dispute over levying fees to recover road damages dates back to 1994.</p><p>The tonnage fee would raise $250,000 to $300,000 next year, less than the estimated $677,000 in damage that county transportation officials say is done to rock hauling routes annually. The amount of the fee is a fraction of previous estimates that fees could be set from 18 to 57 cents a ton to pay for road repair.</p><p>During an hour-long debate Tuesday, local rock and quarry company executives argued that the new fee put them at a competitive disadvantage.</p><p>“It should be all suppliers would pay this fee and do so voluntarily,” said Bill Williams of BoDean Co., which operates Blue Rock Quarry in Forestville, </p><p>The issue pitted Sonoma County-based companies, such as BoDean, Canyon Rock and Stony Point quarries, against Syar Industries of Napa, which trucks in rock from adjacent counties, and Shamrock Materials, which brings in rock by barge from Canada.</p><p>Importation of aggregate has steadily increased, rising to 775,000 tons, or 17 percent of the total 4.68 million tons used in the county in 2005.</p><p>Supervisors and the local executives called for all companies to pay the fee. But Syar officials said they’d pay the fee only if Shamrock did voluntarily, a condition that Shamrock officials rejected.</p><p>David Ripple, Shamrock vice president, said his company wouldn’t pay because “it put us into paying a double fee because we already pay road mitigation fees.”</p><p>Ripple said his company went to barging in rock after the county Aggregate Resources Management plan implemented in 1994 brought about a gradual reduction in terrace mining along the Russian River.</p><p>Because the county’s aggregate plan predates state prohibitions on motor vehicle license levies, the county can use that plan to assess the tonnage fee. But suppliers who bring rock from out of county are not covered by the resources management plan. </p><p>County officials said the tonnage fee had to avoid the appearance of being a tax, which would require a public vote. Representatives of some local quarries said they’d support such a vote next year to force rock importers to contribute to the road repair fund.</p><p>Kelley and Supervisor Efren Carrillo, who served on a subcommittee with industry representatives that studied the issue, said they were “disappointed” by Shamrock’s rejection of voluntary compliance.</p><p>Kelley said county officials may consider other proposals to give bidding preferences on county projects to only those companies that pay the fee, which will be imposed on rock sale contracts after Jan. 1.</p>