Examiner Hears Testimony From Both Sides On Rezone Property Owner Wants A Change From Semi-Rural To Mining

One company’s desire to collect a scarce natural resource has angered many Mead neighbors.

In a four-hour hearing before County Hearing Examiner Michael Dempsey Monday, both parties presented exhaustive and impassioned testimony. The hearing was continued Wednesday so more people could testify.

Property owner Greg Sicilia plans to remove about 1.5 million tons of sand from an area on the west edge of Peone Prairie - north of Farwell between Market and Fairview. To do so, he applied for a rezone of about 60 acres from semi-rural residential to mining.

The sand, known as “Mead sand,” is a particularly rare and fine grade used for concrete manufacturing, said to be in limited supply.

Sicilia’s company, Pinewood Properties, is proposing a three-phase mining operation on about 44 of the 60 acres. The rest of the space would be a designated “no-mining zone,” primarily because that part of the land is situated over the old Mead Township dump.

That is just one of the reasons neighbors oppose the rezone.

Residents also fear the effect of removing so much sand will have on stormwater runoff. They worry that trucks making at least 20 round trips a day, five days a week, will destroy the rural character of their neighborhood and make their quiet country roads noisy, dusty and dangerous.

And they say mining has no place in a suburban area - one which continues to become more and more residential.

During the hearing, each side gave conflicting testimony about the geographical makeup of the area. Residents, who have dug their own wells, said that a clay layer can sometimes be found as shallow as 2 feet from the surface.

Mike Connelly, the attorney representing the Friends of Mead, said that to remove 1.5 million tons of absorbent sand would leave an impervious surface and cause water to flow in unpredictable directions.

An engineer testifying for Pinewood Properties, however, said that mining the sand would actually improve stormwater runoff by leveling the area.

Mine proponents explained how local roads would be improved before mining began and how truck schedules would be coordinated with school bus routes. They said trucks would bring in water to control the dust. They assured the hearing examiner that the old dump boundaries have been determined and showed old aerial photos of the area as proof.

An engineer for the Friends of Mead disagreed, however, and provided different aerial photos of the area.

Connelly argued that too much information is still unknown to safely proceed with mining. No attempt, he said, has been made to identify what materials the dump site contains.

Resident Amy Wharf testified that the local roads identified as the trucks’ haul route are currently designated as off-limits to commercial truck traffic. To allow the mining trucks would open their roads to all commercial truck traffic, she said.

Wharf and other neighbors argue that dump trucks would present a danger to the roads’ usual users, like horseback riders, kids on bikes and local cross country teams.

By ordinance, the hearing examiner has 10 working days to issue a decision, unless waived by the applicant. Based on the amount of technical information in the file, Dempsey said he doubted he would be able to issue a decision in that period of time.