Asphalt plant saga continues

SAGLE — The permitting battle may be over, but the war over a controversial asphalt plant appears to be far from over.

Landowners are calling on Bonner County commissioners to overturn their ruling on a land use appeal which paves the way for the relocation of an asphalt batch plant to an existing gravel pit on the west side of U.S. Highway 95 north of Monarch Road. The commission turned down the batch plant opponents’ appeal of a conditional use permit on Jan. 11.

Sagle residents have fiercely opposed Interstate’s temporary batch plant operations at Frank Linscott’s surface mine for years and show no sign of letting up despite the appeal’s denial. They are asking the board to reconsider its position on grounds the asphalt plant will degrade property values and jeopardizes public health, impacts which have been documented in other communities.

Opponents of the plant are also taking aim at the gravel pit’s conditional use permit, records show. Opponents have argued at public hearings that the pit is a nonconforming use, although the county’s legal counsel said the gravel excavation operations were covered under a conditional use permit dating back to 1995.

However, the permit’s conditions of approval were never fully satisfied, which meant the permit was never actually issued, according to project opponents. Conditions of approval included water quality monitoring, groundwater buffer zones, fugitive dust and stormwater countermeasures, and improvements to the pit access road’s intersection with U.S. 95.

The county’s former planning director, Marty Taylor, advised the Idaho Department of Lands in 1997 that Interstate obtained a permit.

“The use permit, however, has not been issued,” Taylor said, indicating the highway improvement condition was never satisfied.

Sagle landowner Darcey Fugman-Small, a former planning director in Walla Walla County, Wash., argues the pit is still operating as a nonconforming use.

“The conditions of the permit that triggered its issuance were not then, and have not yet, been met,” Fugman-Small said in a Jan. 24 letter to commissioners.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.