The Haines Borough Assembly heard an appeal to a permit issued for a rock quarry and a gravel pit at two sites on Lutak Road. At the end of a long meeting, the assembly decided that the company will have to reapply and make its case again in front of the planning commission.
The borough assembly meeting agenda was loaded with items bound to generate long discussions this week. Assembly members heard an appeal to a conditional use permit issued to Southeast Road Builders for a gravel pit and a rock quarry at two sites totaling 27 acres along Lutak road. After more than two hours of discussion, the assembly directed the company to start the permitting process over, and to apply for one permit for each of the sites.
Resident Gershon Cohen spoke to the assembly as a representative for the appellants he brought up many issues he said justify the cancellation of the current permit.
Cohen: “We believe there was a lack of technical information and technical support that essentially made it impossible for the staff and the planning commission to make a reasoned decision.”
Cohen told the assembly that one tour operator reported debris sliding on the road last summer. He spoke of the effects of the delays caused by the increased truck traffic on tour operators. He said the operations could increase the risk of landslides, and encouraged the assembly to wait until the results of a study of the area by geologists are made public this summer. Cohen said the company significantly undervalued the project in its application, and that would limit the amount of a fine the borough could levy in case something goes wrong with the project.
Cohen said best practice would require that the company test the rock they are planning on blasting and digging.
Cohen: “If the rock that you are going to be digging into is high in sulfur, you are going to be exposing sulfur compounds, you expose those compounds to air and water, you are going to produce sulfuric acid, that’s going to liberate mobilized metals, they are right across the street from Lutak Inlet, where we have important fish runs. Maybe it can be dealt with adequately, but the plan for how you are going to deal with that should have been presented to the planning commission.”
Cohen also brought up the possibility of the operations releasing asbestos into the air.
We checked Cohen’s claim of environmental risk with Guy Archibald, a chemist and environmental advocate. Archibald confirmed there is a risk, and that testing the substrate would be a relatively small expense for the company. He said there is one quarry in Juneau where asbestos release has been an issue. He added that arsenic is also common in Haines soils, and that it would be prudent to test for it.
After the appellant’s presentation, TJ Mason, who manages the project for Southeast Road Builders, spoke in defense of the permit. He said the company has a lot of experience with this type of work.
Mason: “Currently we manage multiple pits throughout Southeast Alaska in Haines, Juneau, Ketchikan, and Prince of Wales. We also have performed rock and slope stabilization on recent projects, like the Haines Highway phase one and phase two projects.”
Mason said many of the appellant’s concerns are already addressed in the conditions for the current permit, or by other permits to be issued at later dates, and some activities are granted a use by right and are not subject to permitting.
Mason: “The planning commission will already be receiving an engineered reclamation plan for review, as one of the permit requirements, and it’s going to address many concerns presented as part of the original permit requirements. Along with a reclamation plan, hazard area safety is already required to be designed and engineered prior to development, that’s not prior to issue of the permit, that’s prior to development.”
Mason said the company is studying the substrate to figure out the slope they will leave on the edge of the quarry to avoid landslides and rockfalls. He said he has reached out to the owners of the tour companies that will be affected by truck traffic. He added that a lot of the impacts the appellants object to are permitted in the heavy industrial zone where the operations are located.
Mason: “We are not directly incompatible with all the other users of the area, AML and Delta Western are both users of that waterfront industrial area, as far as I know its the only waterfront industrial zone in the Haines borough. And we provided a letter from AML saying that they have no issues with our use in that area. If it would help I can reach out to Delta Western, I’m sure they would provide the same thing.”
Assembly member Debra Schnabel questioned whether having the two areas under one permit is appropriate.
Schnabel: “One of the things that concerns me about this project is that it is two different sites, which to me have very different attributes.”
After discussion, the assembly voted 5 to 1, with assembly member Gabe Thomas opposed, to have the planning commission take another look at the permit. They ruled that Southeast Road Builders will have to submit an application for each site so that the planning commission can consider each site’s particularities. The current permit has not been revoked. Borough officials are currently working out the details of the proceedings. They say the planning commission will rehear the permit applications at its January meeting at the earliest. The assembly meeting went late into the night, and members were not able to go through the entire agenda. The meeting was set to continue the next day.
