Area residents are concerned that after recent excavation of the hillside, this gravel pit on the scenic highway corridor west of Winthrop is now visible.
Operators working with state on new permit for site
Some valley residents are concerned by recent excavation at a gravel pit about 1 1/2 miles west of Winthrop where operators have been digging on a hillside that previously blocked the pit from view.
Some neighbors and people who travel Highway 20 from Mazama have raised their concerns with Okanogan County and the Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
At the rate the excavation is progressing, the steep shrub-steppe hill could be gone in a matter of days, an area resident told the Methow Valley News last week.
The pit has been mined for gravel for years, but the hill shielded the pit from view and muffled sound from heavy equipment, one person said. “The big difference is that they’ve pulled off the hillside that hides the pit from the highway,” he said.
Lloyd Logging is moving the boundaries of the pit and expanding a little bit, Lloyd Logging Secretary/Treasurer Bob Lloyd told the Methow Valley News this week. The company is working with DNR to update its permit and will be meeting with agency representatives on Wednesday (April 26), he said.
DNR is sending an inspector to map the area and meet with the company, DNR Communications Manager Joe Smillie said.
The work that’s sparked concern started about two weeks ago. In past years, there was little noticeable activity at the pit, with gravel excavation each spring and a couple of dump trucks coming and going once a year, an area resident told the News. “It was more muffled and less noticeable, and you had to look to see it,” said another.
Lloyd Logging typically pushes up new material at the pit for a short period each year and spends the rest of the time crushing gravel. The gravel is used for concrete, roads and bedding, Lloyd said.
In addition to removing part of the hill, the operators dug a trench on the slope that appears to be intended to collect rocks so they don’t fall onto the highway, one person said.
The highway is part of the officially designated Cascade Loop Scenic Byway. The Mazama Advisory Committee is concerned about visual impacts of the new excavation on the scenic corridor, particularly because it is so difficult to revegetate shrub-steppe habitat, committee chair Jim Gregg told the News. Current mapping technology offers ways to plan excavation to avoid visual impacts, Gregg said.
Gregg also raised his concerns with Lloyd Logging and Okanogan County Commissioner Andy Hover.
Permits for work
Documents for the pit, including a reclamation permit, environmental checklist, and the county’s conditional-use permit, were obtained from DNR by a member of the public who provided copies to the Methow Valley News.
Lloyd Logging has a surface-mining reclamation permit from 1986 to mine 6.8 acres. The company can continue to mine under that permit, as long as the operators don’t expand beyond the 6.8 acres, Smillie said. Operational specifics would be addressed in a permit from Okanogan County, he said.
While Lloyd Logging has a mining permit, it is out of compliance, Smillie said. When Washington did a major update of the Surface Mining Act in 1993, DNR contacted all permittees to bring their permits into compliance, but many — including Lloyd Logging — haven’t completed the process. There are about a thousand such permits in the state, and DNR has not followed through on all of them, Smillie said.
The 1993 mining act says that operating permits issued between 1971 and 1993 would be considered reclamation permits.
The Lloyd Logging permit needs to be revised to address discrepancies and meet the current standards of the act, Smillie said. “We are working with them to correct that,” he said.
If inspectors find the operators are working outside the permitted zone, DNR can suspend the reclamation permit and issue a stop-work order, he said.
County permit
Several people have filed complaints with Okanogan County about work at the mine. “My phone has been blowing up all day,” county Planning Director Pete Palmer told the News last week.
Palmer has been researching the situation to see what permits are in place for the current mining activity. In addition to the reclamation permit from DNR, there should be permits from the state Department of Ecology for dust abatement and stormwater drainage, Palmer said.
Okanogan County issued a conditional-use permit (CUP) to Robert Mack Lloyd that was good for two years and has long since expired, Palmer said. The DNR surface mining permit from January 1986, which was good for two years, states that the CUP was issued by Okanogan County in October 1985.
The CUP was apparently never enforced, since the pit has been allowed to operate all these years, Palmer said. She started work at the county a couple of years ago.
The CUP allowed Lloyd “to develop a gravel pit and stockpiling site to use materials for Highway 20 improvement from Mazama to the Weeman Bridge and future uses.” Lloyd would have to apply for a reissuance of the permit after it expired, it says.
The State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) checklist from September 1985 said the primary use for the mine was from October 1985 to October 1986, and as needed after that. Permit applications and the map are also from the fall of 1985.
When the work was completed, Lloyd would grade, slope and revegetate the site, according to the SEPA checklist.
The 1985 application for the reclamation plan submitted to DNR by Mack Lloyd says that adjacent property would be protected by “natural terrain screening” and that the site would be reclaimed after each operation.
If work is being done without the necessary permits, Okanogan County code gives people 20 days to correct a problem — after the county issues a notice of violation — before the county can issue a cease-and-desist order, Palmer said.
State reclamation law
A surface-mining reclamation permit governs where mining can take place and includes a plan for what the site will look like after all mining is done, state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Communications Manager Joe Smillie said.
Reclamation restores vegetation, soil stability and proper water conditions after mining. Good reclamation allows for future uses and limits environmental impacts, and most operators restore portions of a mine while they continue to work in other areas, DNR said. Retired mine sites are often converted into parks or forested areas that provide wildlife habitat.
Mine inspections are supposed to be performed every year or two, according to DNR. If a mine is out of compliance, DNR staff work with the miners to address the problem. If the issue isn’t corrected, the agency gives formal notice and may take enforcement measures. Penalties can include stop-work orders and/or fines.
