Borough to take another whack at gravel rules

PALMER — A years-long debate over gravel mining in the Mat-Su Borough is back in front of the assembly for resolution.

An gravel ordinance up for discussion at Tuesday’s assembly meeting does two things:

• Establishes reclamation standards.

• Establishes a permitting process for mining operations that seek to dig into the water table.

The gravel issue first landed at the assembly in mid-2008 when the borough assembly decided to put a moratorium on new mines digging into the water table. Mines already dredging could continue to do so. The fear was that mining in the water table could pollute nearby wells or cause them to run dry.

Gravelers at the time said the ordinance was unnecessary and threatened an important Mat-Su Valley industry. They argued that prohibiting mines from digging deep would result in a lot of small mines spread over a large area rather than a few big, deep, consolidated mines.

Since 2008, the assembly has taken up the matter at least a half dozen times, often sending it back to a working group assembled to address the matter.

In December 2010, borough staff came to the assembly with a large, comprehensive ordinance aimed at addressing gravel mining as a whole. The assembly objected to major portions of it, tried to fix it with amendments and eventually killed the proposed ordinance, before directing staff to come back with something smaller.

“We received specific instructions to do two things, mining in the water table and reclamation,” said borough planner Alex Strawn.

At the time, the assembly told staff to come back with an ordinance targeting just those two concerns.

According to the ordinance, anyone wanting to mine gravel on more than 40 acres of land needs to get a permit. There’s another permit for mining within four feet of the water table. If the operation keeps gravel extraction to below 2,000 cubic yards per year, they’re exempt.

Strawn said that the water table mining permit comes with a lot of safeguards. The mines have to gather all kinds of data and get insurance before they can get a permit.

“As mining progresses, there would be protections, ongoing gathering of data,” he said.

Reclamation will have to happen after a phase of mining is completed and wrapped up in two growing seasons. Gravelers will have to pull out junk vehicles and trash, level slopes to acceptable grades and blend them with the landscape. They’ll have to lay down four inches of topsoil or silt-loam and have 60 percent of the area covered in growing plants by the end of the two-season period.

Areas in which mining has entered the water table will need to have an even more gradual slope.

Since the ordinance last came up in 2010, the assembly has undergone a makeover with new members elected, some of whom make no bones about their distaste for new regulations.

A comprehensive ordinance addressing tall structures such as towers went down in flames last month, with the assembly not only rejecting it, but also repealing existing code addressing tall structures.

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