PORT ANGELES — Owners of the Little River Quarry have 21 days to appeal a Clallam County commissioners’ decision on Tuesday not to grant an exemption to county code to allow the quarry work to proceed.
The decision upholds the hearings examiner’s ruling that the rock quarry along the Elwha River is in an erosion zone.
An appeal would be heard in Clallam County Superior Court.
Last week at a public hearing, lawyers defending the owners of the Little River Quarry said the hearings examiner did not apply the best available science in making the erosion hazard determination.
At the May 26 hearing, attorneys representing the county’s Department of Community Development and the Upper Elwha River Conservation Committee said the quarry is an erosion hazard according to Clallam County code because it’s on a 40-percent slope and has unconsolidated rock.
County commissioners said Tuesday that those representing the quarry hadn’t given them any grounds to overturn the examiner.
“Nothing that I’ve heard changes my view on what the hearing examiner said,” said Commissioner Steve Tharinger.
Commissioner Mike Doherty said he had reviewed all of the evidence over the three-day weekend.
“The burden did fall to [the Little River Quarry], and I don’t think that burden was met,” he said.
On Tuesday, Mike Shaw and George Lane, who own the quarry, would not reveal their future plans.
“We’ll continue to pursue this, but we are not at liberty to say right now what our strategy is,” Shaw said.
“But after 13 years we are not walking away.”
The two said they already had withdrawn their request for a permit through the Department of Natural Resources under the Forest Practices Act after it was appealed by a group of local landowners.
“We decided that you have to pick your battles and we decided to go in another direction,” Lane said.
A permit was granted in 2007 under the Forest Practices Act to allow exploratory mining on 40 acres of private land near Olympic Hot Springs Road about a mile north of Olympic National Park.
The quarry operated, building a road and doing preparatory work in 2007 and 2008 before withdrawing, Shaw said.
Clallam County Hearing Examiner Pro Tem Lauren Erickson ruled in June 2009 that the quarry is an erosion hazard.
The ruling matched a staff recommendation from the county’s Department of Community Development.
Keith Peters, chairman of the Upper Elwha River Conservation Committee, said he was pleased with the decision of the commissioners.
The group has opposed the quarry and was the driving force behind the appeal against the Forest Practices Act permit.
“The best evidence on the record was the photos and testimony that there had been erosion on the site,” he said.
He also noted Commissioner Mike Chapman’s comments just before the vote.
Said Chapman: “It is important to note that there is still further study of this property and this doesn’t slam the project short. There are a lot of data to be found here.
“There is another track to get it done and that is to actually get the permits and not ask for this waiver.”
After withdrawing their request for a permit from DNR, the pair decided to ask the county to allow them to move forward with exploratory mining — which is on 3 acres or less to test the quality of the product — with an exemption from doing a full environmental impact assessment, but instead mitigate any possible effects of landslides.
“If we could assure ourselves that the rock quality was there then you can decide if you need to take on another partner to go at it in a big way or if you want to sell, knowing what you have instead of taking a huge gamble and investing all the money that it would take to do the full evaluation,” Lane said.
Work had begun to build the road and a catch basin — to mitigate any landslide problems — was created in 2007 and 2008, Shaw said.
“We have never sold one acre of rock from there,” he said.
“We built the road to a point where there was solid rock and we had to blast as part of the building process.
“We were going to start from the top and mine the back part and then take the knob down as you go, and because of the lapse of time and the reclamation work we had planned, you wouldn’t ever see a difference.
“We chose that method even though it wasn’t the cheapest option.”
Both Lane and Shaw said they believed the issue had been politicized rather than evaluated objectively.
“They got a stack of petitions to do with the people in that area and almost everyone who signed to remove the dams signed to oppose the quarry,” Shaw said.
“I feel that was the determining factor on why it was ruled that there was a determination of significance [which would cause them to need a full impact statement] rather than mitigated like we had been told it probably would be.”
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
