Azusa City Council Revives Vulcan Mining Plan
In an unexpected move without prior notice, but under the threat of litigation, the Azusa City Council reversed itself Monday night by voiding their previous vote on Vulcan's revised mining plan and suspending the rules of parliamentary procedure. In effect, the two votes allow the council to reconsider the plan, with or without modifications, and to avoid the usual legal requirements of the rules of order and procedure. By acting in this manner, the council has attempted to avoid the need to send the revised plan back through the process of examination through the Azusa Planning Commission.
At the meeting, Councilman Macias outlined his concerns as everything from revegetation to onsite air monitoring, additional environmental and financial safeguards, regular access to trails, including Fish Canyon, mitigation for dust control, an airtight 2038 mine closure date, and setting aside and earmarking funds for any open space in the future. Adding, "They [Vulcan] were willing to step up to the plate and raise the bar and give us something that was completely better, much, much better than what was presented and took action on that night," he said. "They were prepared to address all of the concerns that I had stated and then some. I’d like to give them a second chance to address those concerns," said Macias.
On June 21, 2010 at 7:30 pm Azusa staff presented the Azusa City Council with a series of options on how to proceed. The city council voted to enter into negotiations with Vulcan Materials to revise the mining plan. The revised plan was presented to the city council on July 6 and approved 4-1, with Mayor Rocha the only dissenting vote.
Save Our Canyon had presented our conditions for an acceptable mining plan to the City of Azusa, but our 8 points were almost completely ignored:
- Successful micro-benching and revegetation of the Mayan steps must be completed within 24 months before additional mining is permitted in the westerly 80 acres. In addition, rather than using the existing road through the Mayan steps, the present road must be reclaimed and a new road initiated (and subsequently reclaimed) on the east side to reclaim the remainder of the easterly disturbed property. The remainder of the easterly property must be successfully micro-benched and revegetated within 7 years of approval of the project.
- Swap the 24 mcy from the East for 24 mcy additional material in the westerly 80 acres.
- All mining west of Fish Creek must occur east of the ridge line (drainage only to Fish Creek side).
- Reclamation of each mining phase (I-W, II-W, III-W, IV-W, and V-W) must be completed within 5 years of mining completion.
- $80 million reclamation bond in the development agreement.
- Removal of loophole in development agreement for
lack of performance of micro-benching. In the event of non-performance,
bond is forfeited and CUP is revoked. Section 2.5 (3) is amended as
follows:
"(3) City shall review Vulcan's submitted documentation and, within forty-five (45) days of receipt, shall determine, in its reasonable discretion, whether to grant a reasonable period of time to Vulcan to cure and commence the reclamation obligations by submitting an application to both the City and the State for an amended reclamation proposal or deem Vulcan to be in violation of the Planning Documents and Vulcan surrender the entirety of their reclamation bond and forfeit all claims to future mining of the project site." - Revegetation standards are to be based upon
random sampling undisturbed
surrounding areas compared with random sampling of reclaimed areas.
Replacement of paragraph 2 under Performance Standards (Page 110 of
Reclamation Program) is amended as follows:
"However, VMC proposes to use these existing west and east facing slopes on Van Tassel as reference sites against which to judge successful final revegetation for future reclaimed areas. This will be done by randomly selecting plots from undisturbed west and east facing slopes on Van Tassel and collecting data on vegetative cover, density, and species richness, and comparing this data to randomly selected plots for each reclamation phase."
Table 12 is amended to read "60% Of Reference Site" for "Vegetative Cover". - An unbiased well established, well known, environmental group with extensive experience in dealing with mining issues, also be included in the biennial review and most notably in the 25 year review, to give a report of their findings in the matter of compliance of Vulcan Materials, to the Conditional Use Permit and Reclamation Plan. This environmental group shall be determined by the City of Azusa and all fees paid by Vulcan Materials.
At this point, our only recourse is to circulate a petition for a referendum to the people. Signature gathering will begin once the development agreement is approved on July 19. If you are interested in helping collect signatures, please contact us by email or phone. All signatures must be gathered within 30 days, so the time is critical.
Thanks,
SaveOurCanyon.org
All information and images provided by Save Our Canyon
(626) 629-8335
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