SHINE — By mid-2009, another 1.2-mile stretch of conveyor belt at Fred Hill Material’s Shine hub is expected to be rolling gravel that eventually will be used in asphalt road projects.
Over the past two years, the company has assembled the new conveyor belt link to begin pulling gravel from 137 acres in what is known as the Wahl extraction area on Pope Resources tree farm timberland west of the Shine hub, about a mile south of state Highway 104.
Fred Hill acquired the conveyor from a California company that used it for an earthen dam project.
The conveyor belt from the Wahl extraction area is not connected to the so-called “pit-to-pier” project which, as proposed, would move gravel on another conveyor belt from the Shine pit hub to a 1,000-foot pier to be built on the Hood Canal shoreline south of Hood Canal Bridge — a distance of about four miles.
That proposal is going through the Jefferson County application process.
Once it is rolling, the Wahl extraction conveyor — which is built on a five-foot-wide concrete slab resembling a sidewalk — will haul about 1 million tons of gravel a year to the hub for processing, said Dan Baskins, Fred Hill project manager.
“Concrete and asphalt are the biggest two uses along with road base and drain fields,” he said of the gravel mined.
The Wahl acreage will provide gravel for up to 20 years, he said, depending on demand.
Wahl-area mining will be conducted out of the public’s view, he said.
“There’s literally not a resident who will see it or hear it.”
Overpasses have been building along the belt stretch to allow wildlife and logging trucks to cross.
The conveyor’s rollers do not require grease, he said. The belt will run about 3.5 feet off the ground when in motion.
The project has been in the planning or construction stage in cooperation with Jefferson County planners since 1999, Baskins said.
The hub is on property leased from Pope Resources for the tree farm which has been logged since 1855.
The Poulsbo-based company operates the Shine gravel pit. It employs about 150 people, 40 percent of whom live on the North Olympic Peninsula.
A separate existing mile of conveyor belt already in operation pulls gravel from an extraction area wo the south of the Shine hub.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
