Environmental Help Needed

[LightRanger]

The best thing you can fight for is to change the agreement to put 100% of their initial profit into an escrow account for the restoration, so it will actually happen.

That was my initial thought while reading that article.

[Adolf Allerbush]

You're going to have a hard time arguing AQ and noise impacts to hold up the project. Why? Because the trucks and whatnot already hit the region, just not in your back yard. AQ is actual improved by the project so you're comment will be dismissed in that manner. It takes a lot of traffic to result in a noise impact. CEQA identifies a potential impact as occurring when existing broadband noise levels are increased by 5 dB or more. That's a moderate impact too. You'd need a 10 dB increase for CEQA to identify noise as truly being an impact. Consider this, your area has some busy fucking roads and in order for there to be just a 3 dB increase there would have to be a doubling of roadway traffic. That ain't happening here, not even close.

LU won't help you as it's an area already set aside for this use.

NEPA won't apply unless there's a federal nexus.

Hitch your wagon to a bug or bunny and hope that there's an ESA listed species there.

[1000-oaks]

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/illegal-sand-mining/

That is an amazing story.

[summit]

NIMBY!

[boarddad]

Listen to DJSapp - he's on the right track.

It's been my experience in construction that whatever way saves money is the way that will prevail. All this litigation in the auspices of saving this species or that one, while seemingly more than a little disingenuous, is making the site near your home more expensive to use, and thus less attractive to the contractor. Is that more expensive than trucking sand from Old Mexico or the Imperial Valley? Probably not, but that is the yardstick that will ultimately kill the use of the site near your home.

What you really need to do is find a source of sand that is not near your home, but cheaper than fighting you to use that sand. For example, I worked for a general site development contractor in Stockton who took an excavator out to dig a test hole on a site he was bidding to develop. Turns out we found a great big layer of quality sand about 10 feet down. That allowed him to lower his price to do the work considerably, because he knew he could mine the sand and move less valuable soil around from his other jobs (where he was going to have to pay to dispose of the dirt), saving him all kinds of money.

Just one example - that's the mindset that will win the day. Don't get into a drawn-out bitter battle or you will get nothing if you lose and they'll really take an ugly stick to the area.

[peck257]

FWIW, having a local source of good quality concrete sand will save the local economy millions of taxpayer dollars. My company does work in the area, and if you think bringing in sand from Mexico or Imperial County is only a half hour extra of driving, you're sadly mistaken. Imp County is best case 2 round trips in a 10 hour day, Mexico is likely one due to time spent crossing the boarder. And since the drivers are union, you have to pay these guys their full 8 hours at $90/hour, for 25 tons of sand.

Those larger jobs down there consume hundreds of millions of tons of sand per year, and it's coming out of taxpayer monies. As others have said, if they have money to litigate, it will go forward regardless it's just a matter of time. The best thing you can fight for is to change the agreement to put 100% of their initial profit into an escrow account for the restoration, so it will actually happen.

Wouldn't it make more sense to import sand from China? Hate to see the US use our natural resources and exploit our environment.

[LightRanger]

Sand is lightweight.