Appeals continue after a Borough board gives Talkeetna’s Comsat Road rock quarry the OK

A rock quarry in Talkeetna continues to be the subject of controversy and appeals after a Borough board ruled the state does not need a special permit to use it.

That ruling, made in late October by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Board of Adjustments and Appeals, overturned a previous decision by the Brough’s planning and land use director Alex Strawn. He decided the state needed a special permit from the Borough to drill rock from the site, which is adjacent to Talkeetna Lakes Park.

The Comsat Road quarry, managed by the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is located about 1.5 miles up Comsat Road from Talkeetna Spur Road. The parcel is 150 acres, with about 10 acres currently tapped for material drilling. A group of residents organized under the Comcast Area Lakes and Land Alliance (CALLA) is leading a fight against ongoing use, saying that the quarry is illegal, in part because it was never correctly designated for use by the state under its own process rules, conflicts with recreation in the area and poses an environmental hazard.

Rebecca Cozad, who owns land against Christiansen Lake near the quarry and is spearheading the alliance group, said their fight is now focused on a series of separate but related battles: appeals asking DNR to re-designate the land for recreation, not materials; appealing the decision to allow drilling without a special permit while lobbying the Borough to amend their process to bar the state from using the quarry unless it complies with its own rules; and working to show that drilling in the site has breached or come within four feet of the water table, an occurrence that would automatically halt its use.

At the core of the group’s argument against the quarry is evidence including emails and improperly published public notices that Cozad said show the state never correctly designated the site for materials to start with. But state officials disagree, saying in an email to the Frontiersman in October that the site was properly designated through a sweeping state materials statute put in place in 2012.

Strawn, the Borough’s planner, said he ruled the state did need a permit based on a history of limited use, which included a gap of more than five years between extractions. A Borough law passed in 2011 says while private owners always require special permitting, the state does not if it has regularly used the site since before the permit rule was put in place. And while just what “regular use” means isn’t stated in the Borough rule, Strawn said, previous permit rulings have used a standard of five years. Since the Comsat site was used a handful of times between 1987 and 1995 then lay dormant until 2017 — well over five years — Strawn ruled the permit was required.

Yet the Board of Adjustment and Appeals (BOAA) disagreed with Strawn’s finding and overturned his ruling, step Strawn characterized in an interview with the Frontiersman as usual. That BOAA decision cleared the way for the state to use the site without further permitting.

Borough officials have said they do not plan to further fight that BOAA decision, citing cost constraints, even as CALLA appeals the decision to Superior Court. Cozad said in an email to the Frontiersman that she believes the Borough should amend that rule, which was originally passed as a measure on the floor, and force anyone operating a quarry — state or not — to receive a permit.

“This should have never been allowed to stand unchallenged, and it was used in the BOAA decision,” she said.

Meanwhile both the Borough and CALLA have asked the state to simply redesignate the site for recreation, blocking any further extraction, a request they expect will be denied. Cozad said her group intends to continuously appeal any denial until it reaches the level of judicial review.

Cozad said the state has pledged to not privately sell any more materials until the redesignation appeal has played out.

Officials with DNR told the Frontiersman the appeal is pending review and does not have an estimated decision date.

But that pending process and promise may still not stop the state from actively using the quarry. That’s because DNR is simultaneously working through an administrative process to transfer the land to the state’s Department of Transportation, a process known as an Interagency Land Management Assignment (ILMA). Once that goes through, the rock would then be extracted for road projects regardless of appeal status, Cozad said.

Officials with DNR said they do not have an estimated date for completion of the IMLA.

“It is vital that DOT&PT continue to have access to the rock at that site for use during emergencies and for emergency permanent repairs,” Department Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT&PT) said in a proposal published for public comment last year.

Finally, Cozad said there is evidence the quarry has already breached the water table, an occurrence that would automatically halt any further materials extraction on the site, and has no Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP).

“It is absurd to deny the water table breach,” she said. “Prior to the [Borough] and state’s use in 2017, 2019 and 2020, the site did not produce major storm water runoff. There were no springs or seeps of water welling up out of the hill at any time, nor was there site saturation evident. There were no creeks of running water coming out of the hillside in spring. There were no winter icefalls. Now there is all of that and it has been there for years now.”

Cozad said CALLA has hired and worked with hydrologists, geologists and SWPPP experts to visit or review photos of the site. Those experts, she said, warned that a SWPPP is needed and the water table has been breached. An expert sent by DNR disagreed with that assessment, as did a Borough engineer who also reviewed the reports and visited the site, Strawn said.

“And at this point, I do not believe there’s enough evidence to say that they are within four feet of the water table to warrant revocation of their exemption,” he said.

Cozad said she believes the Borough and others are not taking the fight against the quarry seriously because it’s out of sight and out of mine in Talkeetna.

“Even in today’s world this happens in Talkeetna, because we are 90 minutes farther away,” she said in an email. “It’s too far for us to have Troopers, it’s too far away for us to have people from all the agencies who provide oversight to be willing to come look at it to effectively monitor it. ”