CSERC’s opposition to the mining project is partly based on the lack of reasonable mitigation measures that are needed to reduce the significance of the project’s impacts. An even bigger issue was the failure of Tuolumne County to follow clear state planning requirements. No environmental impact report (EIR) was ever prepared for this massive conversion of agricultural land into a huge open pit mine. Instead, the County decided to approve the mining project with the minimal amount of analysis contained in a “mitigated negative declaration.” Despite that lengthy title description, a mitigated “neg dec “is a less detailed planning document that is only supposed to be allowed when there are no potential significant impacts from a project. Tuolumne County claims there would be no such impacts from the large open pit mine. CSERC, adjacent property owners, Stanislaus County, and the cities of Oakdale and Riverbank all strongly disagree.
One reason for that disagreement is that no analysis was done for the 75-years-worth of trains chugging to and from the project through Central Valley communities. Based on testimony at hearings, only one small train per week now goes into Tuolumne County to the lumber mill. If the huge rock quarry operates as planned, six days each week, year-round, a train of 60 railroad cars fully loaded with crushed rock will rumble noisily through Oakdale – blocking traffic each time on the main street for three minutes or longer. Noise and dust from the crushed rock will also affect Riverbank neighborhoods. How much disturbance will be caused is unclear, because no study or assessment was ever done for the project’s train traffic impacts.
The project would also create 99.9% of the significant impact threshold level of NOX emissions. Project consultants misleadingly claim that being a fraction below the threshold means there is no impact at all. As approved, the project would operate at night, sending noise far across the foothill ecosystem – affecting raptors and other nocturnal species. The applicants say there won’t be noise impacts, because only humans count.
CSERC attempted to find a middle ground compromise so that the project could be designed to minimize nighttime noise, reduce dust, mitigate for air quality emissions, and schedule trains in a fashion desired by Oakdale and Riverbank. Instead, Tuolumne County supervisors ignored those concerns and scorned the need for an EIR. Only a legal challenge can lead to improvements in the project. CSERC believes that such a profitable mining operation has the financial capacity to do needed mitigation for the loss of open space and oak woodland habitat, and to also restrict nighttime noise and air pollution impacts. The courts will decide.
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May Newsletter Table of Contents
This oak woodland landscape at the western edge of Tuolumne County could soon be transformed into a huge open pit rock quarry stretching across 135 acres. If the proposed Cooperstown Quarry actually moves forward, 56 million tons of rock material could be excavated over 45 to 75 years of open pit mining.