Vote on Yacolt mine expansion postponed

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A vote to expand an existing surface mining overlay by 107 acres next to the Yacolt Mountain Mine was postponed as the Clark County Council consider residents’ concerns over current and future operations at the site.

Council voted 4-0 to continue a public hearing on the proposed expansion which mine operator JL Storedahl & Sons says is for storage of dirt coming from the existing mine. Councilor John Blom was absent.

Following about 90 minutes of public comment, the council voted for the continuance in order to work out a potential agreement that the mine operator would not mine on the expansion site for a number of years, something the overlay expansion could allow.

Much of the testimony was against the expansion based on concerns of current operations. The comments were similar to those given in August when the Clark County Planning Commission had a similar hearing. The commission made a recommendation not to approve the expansion, based off of citizen concerns, which was counter to the county staff’s recommendation to approve.

Bo Storedahl, a member of the family that owns the company, was present before the council to testify. He explained that the amount of dirt above the aggregate that was sought to be mined at the current site was more than initially anticipated, hence the need for the overlay expansion to be allowed to store the material.

Storedahl addressed concerns raised by those against the expansion which included noise from the mine operation and the potential of cancer-causing particles stemming from mining. He said that the increase in noise heard by residents wasn’t due to a change in mining operations, rather it was a result of logging nearby. The trees had previously mitigated the sound.

Storedahl added that accusations of blasts releasing carcinogens were proved wrong in court.

Storedahl said that once the mining in the current area was complete the stored dirt would be used for reclamation. 

“My sole intention is to move that dirt,” Storedahl said. 

Clark County Community Planning Director Oliver Orjiako said that an overlay expansion could lead to more mining.

“If they so choose, there is aggregate resource on the property; they can mine it,” Orjiako said,  should the expansion be approved. Mining in that area would be subject to a conditional use permit process which could involve a requirement for additional environmental analysis.

Councilor Eileen Quiring mentioned testimony that the proposed area could be prone to landslides.

“Geologically it might not even be allowed at some point,” Quiring remarked.

A chief concern raised during the hearing related to how existing operations have been enforced.



“We have not done a very good job in this county of enforcing the conditional use permits that currently exist,” Councilor Julie Olson said, noting that other than the county permitting process, enforcement has been the biggest issue she has seen in her three years on council.

Olson said the county gets “weekly” public records requests about the Yacolt Mountain operation.

“Expanding the overlay now, considering we don’t have our house in order, I have a problem with that,” Olson said.

Community Development Director Mitch Nickolds said the county lost track of monitoring operations like the Yacolt Mountain Mine when it lost a dedicated position to do that during the Great Recession.

“When that (position) went away, of course, so did the accountability,” he said. 

Nickolds, who assumed the role of Community Development head in June, said that oversight of permit enforcement had been lax in the past decade, but recently the county had been working to improve that operation.

Nickolds was optimistic that with dialogue between the county as regulators, the mining operators, and the community, “we can have the best and most successful mining operations in the county.”

“Right now we have a constituency that says ‘yeah we’ve heard that before, thanks’ and we haven’t proven that we can do that,” Olson responded.

Jeanne Stewart looked for a commitment from county staff that “when we get calls from the public, we take them seriously, we don’t just blow them off.”

“Once we start doing that the people will realize that we’re serious about this and that when they have a problem, we have a problem,” Stewart said, “and when we have a problem, the mine is going to have a problem.”

Stewart expressed interest in having an agreement with the operator regarding a commitment not to seek mining in the expansion for a number of years. Storedahl said his company would be open to signing such a condition.

In order to work on an agreement between the county and the mine operator, the hearing was continued for the council’s meeting 10 a.m. Dec. 11. A vote on the expansion could take place then.