Residents give planning commission earful about gravel permit

PALMER — Is a Northern Gravel and Trucking gravel mine a needed economic driver for the Mat-Su Borough or an out-of-control public safety hazard?

If you believe the majority of the nearly three-dozen who showed up to protest a conditional use permit for the company’s proposed pit off Buffalo Mine-Moose Creek Road, it’s the latter.

“This gravel truck operation is a public menace,” said Dr. Gary Benedetti, who lives on Mike’s Lane, the main access road to the gravel operation, during Mat-Su Borough Planning Commission public hearing Monday on the permit application. “I live half a mile away and I can hear the noise from the rock processor inside my home.”

His main complaint, as echoed by many of his neighbors, is safety. One of the 30 stipulations Mat-Su Borough staff has added to the permit includes two safety-related items that drew much attention at the hearing. One says trucks leaving the property are required to stop at the stop sign at the corner of Mike’s Lane and Buffalo Mine-Moose Creek Road. Another says the company will post flaggers on the road to alert drivers and school buses of approaching trucks.

Those trucks have historically ignored the signs and school buses, Benedetti said.

“I have never seen a single truck stop at the stop sign, ever, whether there was a school bus there or not,” he said. “When they do drive up the hill, they have to swing out into oncoming traffic right before a blind curve. It’s only a matter of time before somebody gets killed there.”

Benedetti also referenced a pair of accidents with gravel trucks he believes show a lack of safety standards.

“When they flip a truck and the road is closed, for me, I can’t get to the hospital,” he said. “I’m an orthopedic trauma surgeon — one of two in the state. I fix the people they scrape off the highway. When the road is blocked because they flip the trucks, I can’t get to the hospital.”

Resident complaints about safety concerns and previous punitive action from the state and borough shouldn’t be a consideration for the planning commission, said Lisa Richard, assistant borough attorney.

“Legally, enforcement actions are not relevant to his application process, along with the number of other things that would not be relevant,” she said about Northern co-owner James Baxter. The commission’s jurisdiction is “whether there are land use impacts relevant to the use of the land that you need to take into consideration.”

In fact, despite previous citations and recently catching the Northern Gravel and Trucking pit operating without a valid permit, borough staff was recommending the planning commission approve Baxter’s permit. The application called for expanding the current operation from about 8 acres to up to 20 acres on a 40-acre parcel of land and extracting up to 40,000 cubic yards of gravel annually from the mine for 10 years.

Prior to its current permit application, Northern had operated from 2010 to September 2012 on a borough administrative permit, and the borough was even a customer, said Alex Strawn, the borough’s development services manager.

“When they did the contract with the borough, it expired partway through there,” he said. When the borough became aware that the permit had lapsed and Northern was still selling gravel, “we verbally said they need to come up and get a permit.”

Although the borough has received numerous reports that Northern had been operating its pit throughout the winter without a permit, officials “have not been able to catch him in the act,” Strawn said.

Even so, other issues raised by concerned neighbors simply aren’t within the scope of the permitting process, said Pamela Ness, a code compliance officer with the borough.

“Just because a whole neighborhood doesn’t like them, if they operate within the code, we can’t do anything about it,” she said. “If it’s in our code, we can’t pick and choose what we’re going to report.”

That prior history is extremely relevant, argued Glenn Price, an attorney who represents some of the homeowners in the neighborhood who spoke to the planning commission Monday.

“The applicant completely ignored many conditions of the administrative permit,” he said. “It expired Sept. 23, 2012 and until recently, it was still operating with out a permit. So I think the issue of prior conduct is very relevant here. If he’s not going to follow conditions in an administrative permit, how is he going to follow them in a conditional use permit? To add more conditions to satisfy people’s concerns is useless. He’s not going to follow the conditions.”

For his part, Baxter said he has no problem with most of the 30 conditions borough staff has recommended. But there are a couple he questions.

One is a stipulation outlining that gravel trucks would come to a complete stop at the stop sign on Mike’s Lane where it meets Buffalo Mine. When he first began operations, the state and borough required Baxter to put in a graded approach to the sign for his trucks. Since then, however, school buses stopping in the middle of the approach along with parents who stop to pick up their children don’t allow adequate space for trucks to make it up the incline to the sign, he said.

“I don’t have a problem with that,” he said about the stipulation overall. “The problem I have is, when we were starting that driveway approach there, it was (according) to the state guidelines. … The problem that we have is that it seems that when the bus decides to drop kids off and parents come to pick their kids up, their parking in this area of approach that we have built for these trucks to stop on. You can’t see them until you get up to the crest of the hill there. Are they supposed to be stopping on that approach that we built?”

Another condition that calls for the business to provide flaggers at that intersection to improve safety is “not even economically reasonable,” Baxter said. “What I would suggest is I have problem putting up signs when we’re hauling in and out of there to notify traffic trucks could be present.”

Price countered that safety is a very large concern for residents, adding that the borough can put as many conditions on Baxter’s permit as it wants, but “he’s going to follow the conditions.”

He does agree, however, that the one about the stop sign should have to be spelled out.

“That’s not even a condition, that’s a requirement of state law to stop at a stop sign,” he said. “I don’t even know why it’s in there in the conditions.”

While it may seem redundant to put simple common-sense things into a permit like stopping at a legal stop sign, resident Adam Pollock said he’s been forced to speak up because of grave safety concerns for his neighborhood.

Addressing the planning commission goes against his “live and let live philosophy of life,” he said. “I’ve been dragged into this unwillingly based on public safety issues for myself and my kids, my neighbors. … This is a residential neighborhood with kids getting on and off buses. My kids can’t ride their bikes on Buffalo Mine Road anymore because it’s not safe.”

He also said that it’s not uncommon to see drivers operating their gravel trucks in an unsafe manner.

“I find it almost inconceivable that past behavior would not be brought up in consideration of future privileges of doing business in my neighborhood,” Pollock said. “You’re talking about blatant violations of past permits, and if we’re not going to talk about that, I’m not sure what we’re doing here.”

Public testimony on the conditional use permit was still ongoing as of press time Monday evening.

Contact reporter Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.