Assembly gets earful over noise

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough Assembly members got another visit Tuesday from a group of folks they’ve seen a lot of lately — the gravel industry.

On the table was a change in Borough rules regarding gravel pits. Before Tuesday, one clause in the codes required that residential developers subdividing next to an existing gravel pit had to erect something to dampen the noise — an earthen berm or other structure.

Borough Attorney Nick Spiropolous said that, in his view, that requirement should be repealed. He said that requiring someone to do something to protect himself from his neighbor is unconstitutional.

Spiropolous, using an analogy bandied back and forth at the meeting about folks living next to a farm and the smell of animals wafting onto their property, summed up the noise mitigation requirement, “you want to move next to a farm? You’ve got to install air scrubbers on your land.”

He said for a government body to impose that requirement infringes on property rights.

Tom Healy, executive director of the Alaska Rock Products Association, testified Tuesday. His previous appearance at an assembly meeting was to speak to an ordinance the body was considering that constituted a ban on gravel operations digging into the water table. The measure passed in September and was later reaffirmed. The assembly has all along stated its intentions to work with the industry on a compromise.

Tuesday, Healy testified that in his view removing the noise mitigation requirement would pass the cost for noise mitigation on to gravel mines. And the gravel pit, in this instance, was there first.

“From a policy point of view, we think this is poor policy to adopt this ordinance,” Healy said. “It transfers to an existing operation the cost to mitigate the use next door,” in this instance, a subdivision, he said.

Healy said that other attorneys have looked at the same issue and concluded, contrary to Spiropolous, that the requirement is constitutional.

Spiropolous said removal of the stipulation doesn’t close the door legally for subdividers or gravel pit operators — civil action could clear up a noise issue. But for a government body to impose such a restriction on a subdivider is fraught with legal peril, Spiropolous said.

He also offered a response to the legal opinions Healy submitted saying one of them cited as basis for its claims a legal decision that actually supported his view.

Borough Assemblyman Tom Kluberton came out in support of the repeal.

“I’m not sure there’s a huge downside to changing this,” he said before asking Spiropolous if it was true that the cost to mitigate the noise would end up falling on the gravel pit.

Spiropolous said he didn’t think it would.

Assemblyman Pete Houston chimed in with his view, saying, “I’m opposed to requiring a person to protect themselves against the actions of their neighbor.”

Eventually, the berm requirement was repealed with Assemblyman Mark Ewing casting the lone dissenting vote.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.