FACTS about (proposed) Liberty Quarry Compiled by Jerri Arganda of Rainbow Against the Quarry This hard-rock, open pit mine will operate for up to 75 years.
The pit will be 1000’ deep (as deep as the Empire State Building is high) and over one mile long. Granite will blast more than 100,000 tons of rock per week.
The mine will operate 20 to 24 hours per day, 6 days a week.
1600 truck trips will be added to I-15 at Rainbow Valley blvd.
CONSEQUENCES
Traffic
Sixteen hundred truck trips per day at Rainbow Valley Blvd. would equate to one truck every fifty-five seconds entering I-15. This would add tremendously to the congestion that already occurs entering and exiting I-15 at this location. Entering from the quarry site, the trucks would be coming down approximately a 10% grade for close to one mile. The diesel exhaust pollution and diesel soot pollution in San Diego County and Riverside County will be increased extensively. Diesel exhaust particles (DEP) and diesel soot are two of the most serious pollution threats. They contain over 450 different chemicals, over 40 of which are known toxins. The other 410 chemicals have yet to be tested. There are 2400 hospitalizations and 54 premature deaths from DEP soot. There is NO known safe level of exposure to DEP. Granite Construction will be leasing their trucks. They will weigh the trucks on their property in order to take the burden off the Inspection Station. I question, then, who will ensure that these trucks meet safety standards? The CHP will randomly tag approximately twenty-five percent of the trucks, but, currently, they only have one and one half bays and often there is only one inspector. Unsafe trucks will only contaminate more.
Health Issues
There has never been a quarry of this type built anywhere that has the same, complex prevailing wind situations as this site. The wind speeds are unknown but are extremely high and unpredictable. Residents nearby have clocked them at seventy miles per hour. This is due to the prevailing winds and mountainous terrain. The Santa Margarita River Valley is a unique location which will always funnel wind through this area. It is impossible to predict the impact on dust conditions. This makes a quarry at this location unacceptable and completely inappropriate. How do you “contain” nature? There is very little actual data available to be able to make a prediction upon the environmental impact. Historically, there are no consequences for a “mistake” by a mining company. The blasting and pulverizing of this particular type of rock will create fine particles of crystalline “silica” that will be breathable. This dust is known to cause respiratory disease and can be fatal. “Silicosis’ results in inflammation and scarring of lung tissue. “Mica” is also part of this rock formation and is more dangerous to breathe than asbestos. Children and the elderly, as well as anyone with breathing problems (as asthma) are particularly susceptible. There are forty schools in an eight mile radius of the site. There are homes as close as 1300’ from the site. Rainbow residents are less than 1 mile. Fallbrook and De Luz residents are from 1 to 6 miles. Rainbow Canyon and southern Temecula: 1 ¾ miles, Wolf Creek: 2 ¼, Red Hawk: 2 ¾, Old Town Temecula: 3 ¾. Is there no place else more appropriate to build this strip mine? Granite Construction’s Gary Johnson has been quoted in several interviews (ABC Channel ten, KPBS, KFRG radio in Temecula) as saying, “ This is an ideal site is because there are no residences near.” This is insulting. Fugitive Dust
Fugitive dust is not addressed in the EIR, yet, it accounts for 90% of air pollution. Fugitive dust is particulate matter (PM) that is suspended in the air by wind action and human action. The smallest particles, such as silica, can remain in the air for weeks. It has an aerodynamic diameter smaller than 10 microns. This dust can be produced by land clearing, grading, excavation, loading and unloading bulk materials (such as sand, gravel, soil, aggregate) as well as blasting and digging up rock, separating by size, transferring material into storage bins, discharging them into mixed hoppers. (“ California Air Resources Board”)
Property Values”
Property values will plummet! They already have if you talk to real estate agents. I have personally been told of three different occasions where buyers pulled out of the deal with disclosure of a “possible” quarry being built. No one would choose to live near a quarry. No one is far enough away to escape the “fallout”. The California Board of Realtors stated that you “must disclose if there is something that could impact the buyer.” The San Diego Real Estate disclosure for Rosemary’s Mountain states, “Property in the vicinity of a rock quarry may experience occasional explosions, equipment noise, and dust from quarry operations.” Does the benefit of having a quarry next to a freeway out way the losses of our property value, our threatened health, loss of livelihood for growers, nurseries…not to mention the 4300 acre ecological reserve owned by San Diego State University?
Noise and Light Pollution
It will take Granite one to two years to blast and rebuild the existing road that is currently at a grade of at least eighteen percent (most likely higher) from Rainbow Valley Blvd. to the (proposed) site …close to a mile. This would be a part of our lives daily in Rainbow and Fallbrook… The quarry will be in operation continuously with the exception of Sunday for 20 hours per day. Granite themselves admitted the possibility of working twenty four hours a day if the “job warranted it.” This means “light pollution” through the entire night as well as generators and other machinery running…sound, as we well know, is magnified at night. Even wind speeds influence noise. Camp Pendleton is much further away from us and their bombing shakes our windows. We are talking about blasting rock with dynamite!
The Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve
A Native American Saying: “There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. We are simply not patient enough, quiet enough to pay attention to the story.” This 4,344 acre reserve is owned by San Diego State University. It is one ridge away from the (proposed) quarry site where Granite hopes to blast. On this reserve is the last coastal to inland ( Santa Anna Mountains to Palomar Mountains) linkage for mountain lions and other wildlife in southern California. It is home to over twenty species of wildlife. The property was developed to protect the native habitat and plant life. Now, WE need to protect it! Forty percent of the reserve is dedicated to ongoing research projects; everything from monitoring earthquake activity, watershed management, wildfire detection, air quality to habitat control. The reserve has welcomed more than 300 national and international research projects for scientists and students in a variety of fields including biology, geography, geology and engineering. This reserve is used by The Bureau of Land Management, The California Department of Fish and Game and The Nature Conservancy to name a few. The field station sites are viewed by people as far away as India, China and Australia. Scripps Institute has equipment on this site as well. The data that has been accumulated since the sixties is irreplaceable. The reserve is an “outdoor laboratory.” It is California as it was one hundred years ago. The blasting vibrations and noise, the light pollution, the dust that would render the sensitive monitoring equipment useless ..would devastate the research and shut it down.
Polluting the Santa Margarita River
The Santa Margarita River is the longest and last free-flowing, protected, coastal river in Southern California. It runs through a steep granite gorge, oak forests, golden meadows and green marshes on it’s way to the ocean. It is joined by many creeks on the journey. This is the water source for Camp Pendleton. This river will NOT be immune to the pollution and chemical runoff from the quarry. The quarry site which is at 2000’ elevation gets the highest amount of rainfall in the area. After sixty minutes of moderate rainfall, the runoff from the quarry would have made it’s way to the Santa Margarita River…at 400’ elevation. The EPA study from 2003 states that 40% of the headwaters of western rivers have been polluted by hard-rock mining. It is also the largest source of watershed pollution in the United States.
Agriculture
As you know, Fallbrook has been called the “Avocado Capitol of the World.” Along with the avocado crops, citrus crops as well as exotic flowers (as Protea) are abundant. Nurseries are plentiful throughout these communities. This is the livelihood of much of the population! How will the vineyards be affected? No one knows. Concern is growing throughout the area as to how a quarry will affect their crops. “Fugitive dust deposited on leaves and foliage reduces crop yields.” ( California Air Resources Board) These growers are ALL at risk.
Summary.
And when the project is complete? When our children and grand children are grandparents themselves? Then what? What is our “legacy” to them? What will happen to the “quality of their lives?” Perhaps Granite will turn this ugly pit into a reservoir. It is a known fact that reservoirs built from quarry sites are conducive to causing earthquake activity. “Extraction of rock adjacent to a fault line can induce seismic instability.” The Elsinore fault line runs beneath the site. What will be the result? NOONE knows. There are just too many unknowns. Is it worth taking a chance with the lives of so many. Isn’t it just a better idea to tell Granite to find a more “suitable” location ? Somewhere where 300,000 people do not live within a one to ten mile radius?
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