Still no decision on sand mine - Standing-room-only crowd attends Tainter Plan Commission meeting
By LeAnn R. Ralph, Reporter
Monday, February 12, 2007 10:33 AM CST
The Tainter Plan Commission has once again delayed making a recommendation about the proposed 400-acre sand mine near Hoffman Hills Recreation Area.
Ronald Jordan, president of Proppant Specialists, appeared before the plan commission Wednesday to present what turned out not to be the Brady, Texas-based company’s final proposal.
More than 100 people attended the meeting at the Tainter Town Hall, leaving standing room only.
Proppant is a new company formed in 2006 that has never operated a sand mine.
One part of its proposal that has not been finalized is which road would be used to haul sand out of the mine. The plan presented to the commission on Wednesday indicates that the trucks would use Church Road past Tainter United Methodist Church. An alternate route would be Townline Road (730th Avenue).
The proposal does not indicate whether the sand would be hauled to Colfax to be shipped out by rail or whether it would be hauled south to Rusk.
“It would be a good idea to consider some alternative route to passing the church,” said commission member, Duane Kilde.
He said he had talked to church members who were concerned about the number of trucks. Five or six truckloads per hour are expected to be hauled out of the mine.
“Cars park along the road when the church is busy,” Kilde said, noting that people attending a funeral or a wedding or another event at the church need to park along the road, leaving little room for a sand truck to get through.
Jordan responded to his concern, by saying, “The township said we would not be allowed to use Townline Road.”
The issue with the road is that it would need to be rebuilt to county standards for truck traffic, said Jerry Mrdutt, a plan commission member who is also on the Tainter Town Board.
The other issue with Townline Road is that it is a joint road with the Town of Red Cedar, so the decision to allow hauling on Townline is not up to Tainter alone.
“Either road would need a rebuild before hauling. They wouldn’t stand up for any length of time,” Mrdutt said.
Jordan noted that Townline Road had initially been the preferred route and that he would have to consider whether the proposal should be amended to include it.
Impact on Hoffman Hills
Another issue is the proposed sand mine’s proximity to the Hoffman Hills Recreation Area, less than a mile east.
“There are concerns about Hoffman Hills. How might you do your best to protect Hoffman Hills during the 25 to 30 years that the mine is operating?” Kilde asked.
Jordan remained silent and did not answer Kilde’s question.
“There’s a lot of concern about that area,” prompted Kilde.
Jordan still did not answer the question.
According to Tainter’s Land Use Plan, Hoffman Hills and some of the surrounding countryside is identified as an environmentally sensitive area.
Part of the Darold Lausted property, where a major portion of the sand mine would be located, also is identified in the land use plan as environmentally sensitive and falls within the woodlot protection area for woods of more than 20 acres.
The purpose of the land use plan is to direct development, noted commissioner Darwin Anderson.
“It is a set of guidelines to use,” added Mrdutt, who read aloud from the beginning section of the land use plan which states that the plan’s goal is to maintain the rural character of the Town of the Tainter, including the preservation of clean lakes, quiet evenings, rustic beauty and natural resources.
Land values
At their last meeting in January, commission members asked for information about how land values might be affected by the sand mine.
“I have not seen any of them where land values have gone down, but those are gravel pits,” said Ron Meyer, assessor for the Town of Tainter and for 12 municipalities in western Wisconsin.
Although Proppant plans to do continuous reclamation throughout the 25 to 30 years that the sand mine would be operated, Meyer said development probably would not occur at all in that area until after the mine is closed.
“I don’t know if (the property value) would change on the land, but houses probably would not sell for what (owners) would like them to sell,” he surmised.
Property taxes on the land in the proposed sand mine area are $2 to $5 an acre on farm land that is valued at about $200 an acre, Meyer said.
Land that is a sand mine would be valued at $1,000 to $3,000 an acre, yielding property taxes of between $20 and $50 an acre.
Meyer pointed out, however, that he would not be assessing the sand mine because it would be categorized as manufacturing and would be assessed by the state.
High-capacity wells
The sand mine would require the use of high-capacity wells, but the state Department of Natural Resources would not monitor the surrounding private wells, Anderson reported.
According to existing case law, however, if a high-capacity well causes problems for surrounding properties, the owner of the well must pay for fixing problems with those wells, although the well owner may not have to pay for all of the repairs to a nearby well if the well is noncomplying and is not up to code.
Manufacturing
One of the issues Anderson asked plan commission members to consider was whether the sand mine would be classified as heavy manufacturing.
Many of the township residents who responded to a survey during the development of the land use plan indicated that the township should not allow heavy manufacturing.
Regarding gravel pits and quarries, out of 400 who responded, 203 indicated that gravel pits and quarries should only be allowed under strict regulations, and 197 respondents said the township should not allow gravel pits and quarries at all.
“How do you see this operation? Is it heavy manufacturing? How do we define heavy manufacturing? Are the existing gravel pits light manufacturing?” Anderson asked.
The sand mine would operate more hours per day than the gravel pits and more months out of the year. The operation would also involve more truck traffic and more activities such as crushing and blasting, said Randy Albricht, plan commission member.
“When we developed [the land use plan] we did not have this type of mining in mind — not this size of a process. What we considered were gravel pits,” Mrdutt said.
According to the land use plan, the preferred area for mining/gravel pits is south of the Red Cedar River and north of Lake Road (850th Avenue). The proposed site for the sand mine is not within the preferred area for gravel pits.
Special exception
To operate a sand mine in the Town of Tainter, Proppant will have to obtain a special exception from the Dunn County Zoning Board of Adjustment (BOA).
According to Mike Helgeson, Dunn County Zoning Administrator, Proppant would have to submit an application by Feb. 16 for the BOA to hold a public hearing on the application on March 15.
He noted, however, that he would be unable to attend a March 15 meeting. If the board would like him to be present, the next available date would be March 22.
The BOA is not required to take into consideration any recommendations from a town board, but does request that a representative for the town board give testimony during a public hearing, Helgeson explained.
A public hearing before the BOA is a formal proceeding. Members of the public are asked to sign in and are sworn in before they give their testimony. A court reporter records the proceedings.
Next meeting
Plan commission members agreed that they did not want to take action on a proposal that was not yet complete.
“We’re reluctant to make a decision on something that’s changing,” Anderson noted.
The Tainter Plan Commission has scheduled a meeting for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 28, at the Tainter Town Hall to review any changes that Proppant may have made and possibly to take action on a recommendation to forward to the Tainter Town Board. |
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