Assembly passes revamped gravel mining rules

PALMER — After six years of discussion, by some accounts, the Mat-Su Borough’s gravel issue came down to a couple hours of debate and a handful of amendments.

While at least three assembly members wanted to take a few more weeks to look it over, the body seemed to side with Assemblyman Jim Colver, who said Tuesday the issue has been pending long enough.

“If we don’t get it right, have the administration come back and do a little tweak to it here and there,” Colver said.

What the assembly ended up with was a set of rules regulating reclamation of decommissioned gravel mines and mining into the water table.

On some issues, the borough dialed the regulations back a bit, allowing for more than just topsoil to be used in reclamation efforts and giving gravelers four, rather than two, years to have 60 percent of their sites covered in vegetation. The body also gave pits one year of sitting idle rather than one year before their grandfather rights to mine under the old rules expired.

But there were a few places where regulations were dialed up a notch. The new regulations require permits for mines on more than 20 acres of land rather than 40, as staff proposed.

One sticking point with the assembly was on the subject of noise mitigation. The rules have kind of a sliding scale of acceptable noise. If a gravel pit starts operation and nearby properties are compatible with industrial noise levels, it can make that much noise without a problem. But if later in the mine’s life something more noise-sensitive goes in, the industry wanted the responsibility for noise mitigation to fall on the neighboring property.

“First and foremost would be that when you tell one landowner that it’s OK to do something with their land, then you turn around and tell the adjacent landowner you’re responsible for providing the buffers by law, you’re taking their land. It’s unconstitutional,” said borough attorney Nick Spiropoulos. “You mail letters to all surrounding property owners saying you know that 15 feet all along your property line, you can’t use it anymore because we’ve decided it’s a buffer?”

The eventual attorney-endorsed compromise was to state that the mine didn’t have to do the noise mitigation work, but that the neighboring property owner might have to look at noise mitigation if he wants to turn his property into a residential area.

When it got to the exemption for small operations mining 2,000 cubic yards of gravel in a year or less, Mayor Larry DeVilbiss decided on advice from the attorney that he’d better sit out the discussion.

“I’ve got to declare conflict of interest because I have one of those and I think every farmer of any size in this borough does. It’s an essential part of their operation,” the mayor said. “I was unaware there were amendments coming forward dealing with this exemption.”

HOW THEY VOTED

Should the assembly adopt a new set of rules for gravel mining?

Ron Arvin: YES

Steve Colligan: YES

Jim Colver: YES

Vern Halter: YES

Warren Keogh: NO

Darcie Salmon: YES

Noel Woods: YES