Minutes 1-3-07 - Pierce County Home Page

e less runoff when they start mining than there is now. They will be recycling the water and
water lost to the site will be from evaporation and will be replenished on Monday from their high
capacity well. With respect to the ground water, we will have testing of adjoining wells to
establish a baseline. Filtration system of any runoff, snowmelt, storm water will stay right on site
referred to as the Jordan sandstone formation. At any given time the quarry will not be any closer
than 100 ft to the groundwater. No runoff will reach the Eau Galle stream or groundwater
contamination. Hwy 128 traffic from the DOT count is a maximum of 70 vehicles per hour,
County Materials has eight trucks operating now. They will have a total of nine trucks, not
additional trucks, running on Hwy 128. We don’t feel we’ll have any negative impact on Hwy
128. We can comply with the regulations of your code and mitigate offsite impacts.
Break for public to look at the map presented by County Materials. 737pm
Reconvene at 7:42pm.
Ms. Jones, Town of Spring Lake, stated she feels the people’s dreams are at stake here; bed and
breakfast, dream home in the woods, retirement home. She sent a letter to Dr. Sanden. She
thought they would be consulted with regards to concerns and would like to still see it happen.
She asked if her well would be tested even though she’s more than a 1,000 feet away. Mr.
Schmidt and Mr. Small answered yes. Glenn Stoddard, Attorney representing Ms. Jones, Joe
Bacon, Bill Klanderman and Carter Turner, explained that he practices environmental and land
use law. It is his understanding that staff has been advised by Attorney Thiel that a conditional
use is essentially the same as a permitted use. He stated that is not correct. A conditional use is a
discretionary of decision where as a permitted use, if an applicant comes in with a complete
application to meet the standards of the ordinance then they are entitled to a permit. If it does not
meet any of the standards of the ordinance, it should be denied. The burden of proof in satisfying
the ordinance is on the applicant. Attorney Stoddard handed out information regarding citing law
cases. Chairperson Barkla stated it is very difficult for the committee to make a decision when
information is being sent to only one committee member. We had a rule if information is not
forth coming in due time then it gets set aside. Jim Schmitt stated we do care about the neighbors.
He disagreed with Ms Jones and that they did have a representative at the table. There was talk
about an environmental impact statement. That is not required of us but of governmental
agencies. Chairperson Barkla stated this is the second hearing that we have had regarding this
issue. There was an e-mail received with the implication that the committee is trying to hurry this
thing along. Mr. Holst, Mr. Pichotta and myself got together to review a questionnaire that was
sent out that was loosely based on an environmental worksheet developed by the Dept of Natural
Resources. Bill Klanderman feels the committee is taking issue with some of the neighbors who
have taken time to make their feelings known. I made my points very clear the last time I was
here. The code clearly gives the committee discretionary power to make a decision based upon
some sixteen criteria. Any one is issue enough. There were four or five that very clearly would
result if the conditional use permit be granted; the beauty of the area, wells are going to somehow