Vulcan battle ongoing as city considers mining ordinance

Vulcan battle ongoing as city considers mining ordinance

By Will Bigham, Claremont Courier

25th November 2006

As the city continues to battle Vulcan Materials Co., the Alabama-based mining company, over its effort to mine in northeast Claremont, the final draft of an ordinance that would set up a process for considering mining applications is scheduled to be passed next month by the planning commission and city council.

In February the State Mining and Geology Board admonished the city for not already having such an ordinance in place, which is required under the state's Surface Mining and Reclamation Act of 1975 (SMARA).

City officials say the ordinance must be passed because, if it is not, the state will take away the city's authority to make decisions on mining operations. The ordinance will not have a direct or immediate effect on Vulcan's application to mine in Claremont.

"The state basically said we have to [pass the ordinance] because we have land that is designated as a significant mineral resource," said Senior Planner Greg Gubman, a city official who has been working on the mining issue since Vulcan first submitted its zone-change application in 2004. "This doesn't give anybody the right to mine, and it doesn't create a zoning that establishes mining as a use that's permitted by right."

The determination on whether Vulcan will be permitted to mine in Claremont is still one to two years down the line, city officials say, and the decision will be based on the merits of the application itself, not on anything contained in the ordinance.

"This is not a first step toward anything but allowing Vulcan to enter an application," said Derek Cole, an attorney for Best, Best & Krieger who is representing the city in its ongoing legal battle with Vulcan. "Nobody is judging Vulcan's application. That decision cannot be made until several more steps happen, so there's no attempt to prejudge the application one way or another."

But the nature of state law regarding mining is such that the decision is largely out of the city's hands. The ordinance is based on a state template, and the city in many ways is bound by the state in judging mining applications.

"If Vulcan submits a proposal, and the city can't find anything wrong with the proposal, and if it meets all the requirements of the state, then the city will probably not have a decision to deny the application," Mayor Peter Yao said. "And if we deny it on the basis of something outside SMARA, then chances are the state would veto it anyway. … Based on our understanding, that's the way the game is played."

The planning commission is scheduled to consider the ordinance at its December 5 meeting, and if the ordinance is passed, the city council will consider it on December 12. If the ordinance passes through the council, it will be forwarded for certification to the State Mining and Geology Board, which meets on December 14, Mr. Gubman said.

The ordinance, city officials say, is a very small part of the city's ongoing battle with Vulcan, which has held a lease on 214 acres of open space in northeast Claremont since the 1960s, always with the intent to mine.

The company hopes to extract 18 million to 22 million tons of sand, gravel and crushed rock from the land over a 10-year period. In the 1960s, the open-space parcel was distant from any residential development, but the city has since permitted the building of residential housing on property directly adjacent to Vulcan's land.

Opposition among residents to the proposed mining has been fierce. When the State Mining and Geology Board visited Claremont in February to hear an appeal from Vulcan, hundreds of impassioned residents packed the gymnasium at El Roble Intermediate School in protest.

Vulcan's leased land is currently zoned as open space, which in Claremont does not permit mining. The company appealed to the city to alter its code to allow mining on open-space parcels, but the city declined, citing fears that such a change would allow mining on far more property than just Vulcan's.

Vulcan appealed that decision to the State Mining and Geology Board, but the board declined to overturn the city's rejection. Vulcan has concurrently been waging a legal battle against the city over the same zoning issue.

The city's mining ordinance would not require the city to change the definition of open space zoning, or allow an alteration for Vulcan to permit mining, Mr. Gubman said.

But the city's unwillingness to do so, representatives for Vulcan maintain, violates state law because the land has been designated by the state as a significant mineral resource.