PORT TOWNSEND — With the existing gravel extraction area nearly depleted at the Shine Pit, Fred Hill Materials Inc. has applied for permits to continue truck-based mining operations more than a mile inland, out of public view.
The application was filed late last week with Jefferson County Department of Community, and county planners are accepting public comment on the proposal through Jan. 5.
The permits application — not connected with Fred Hill’s controversial “pit-to-pier” gravel-mining proposal — is geared toward moving the mining operation out of the public eye, unlike the existing extraction site near Hood Canal, a Hill representative said Friday.
“We’re just as eager to move inland, re-contour the visible mining faces and plant trees instead of continuing to mine in the public’s view,” said Dan Baskins, Fred Hill Materials project manager.
“The Wahl extraction area allows us to do that far more readily.”
Shielded by a ridge to the southwest of the Shine Pit operations hub, the Wahl extraction area is in the middle of a designated commercial forestland.
Wahl represents less than 1 percent of the Thorndyke block of 20,901 acres, which is part of the Hood Canal Tree Farm’s 71,000 acres, and about 300,000 acres in Jefferson County designated as forest resource lands.
Company officials plan to gradually mine and reclaim about 137 of the Wahl area’s 165 acres, preserving 19 for mining setbacks, wetland areas and their buffers.
An additional nine acres will be set aside as easement for a forestry service road and adjacent conveyor to transport sand and gravel to the existing Shine processing hub, according to the permit application.
Much of the conveyor’s path will transverse previously logged areas.
