Frontiersman Editorial

Don't let gravel start a rockslide

August 24, 2007

As the Mat-Su Borough Assembly prepares to vote on a controversial ordinance governing the building and operation of power plants, the state's gravel industry is grumbling as well.

The assembly got an earful Tuesday from gravel industry representatives unhappy with a proposed amendment to a Borough ordinance governing gravel operations that says excavation cannot go deeper than 4 feet above the seasonal high water table. The Borough believes it needs to set the high water mark for the industry to protect surrounding property owners, while gravel companies claim that overly restrictive regulations will discourage companies from mining gravel in the Mat-Su Borough.

To be fair, both entities have cause to grumble over gravel.

Stories like local property owner John Leiner are troubling. Leiner's family farm is located near a Central Paving Products and Quality Asphalt Paving pit south of the Glenn Highway. Since 2004, he's filed many complaints about how the gravel operations has changed the water table and has flooded his back yard more than once. More importantly, when the water table went up because of the gravel mining, Leiner's irrigation well became turbid - filled with sediment and cloudy.

The problem for the gravel industry is one of the preferred methods of reclaiming a played out gravel pit is to make it a lake. This is difficult if the Borough restricts mining to no more than 4 feet above the water table.

Central Paving has offered to replace his well, but Leiner's story is an example of how even a well-meaning and honest company can impact the area beyond. That the Borough would consider action to limit this type of impact is reasonable and prudent.

It would also be bad policy to allow the gravel industry's protests fall on deaf ears. While nobody wants a gravel mine near their property, the truth is they are necessary and essential to the maintenance and growth of any community, and this includes the Mat-Su Borough.

By far the fastest growing area of the state, the Mat-Su Valley and Borough also needs to consider how vital having locally available aggregate is to maintaining that growth.

Perhaps a compromise would be a flexible permitting process where each case can be judged on its own merits. Test an area to determine if it's stable to allow deeper mining, or would require a shallower pit.

That other areas of the state with higher seasonal water tables don't require regulation as that being considered by the Mat-Su Borough does not mean it doesn't warrant consideration. Attitudes like Anchorage Sand and Gravel President Dale Morman, who told the assembly this week that gravel miners &#8220probably know more about the water table in the surrounding areas than any of the residents” also aren't helpful.