LA GRANDE — The Union County Planning Commission denied the application for a rock quarry off Robbs Hill Road about a mile from Perry.

The commission met via telephone conference Monday, March 22, to continue deliberating the application for the 250-plus acre quarry on the property of James Smejkal of Banks. The commission took no new testimony and made swift work of the application.

Commissioner Pete Caldwell made a motion to recommend denial of the application to the county board of commissioners. He said he based his motion on the report from county Planning Director Scott Hartell, who found the application was deficient in several areas. Commissioner Joe Kresse seconded the motion.

There was no debate, and Caldwell, Kresse and fellow planning commissioners Mat Barber and Joel Hasse voted in favor of the denial. Commissioner Chuck Sarrett recused himself, stating a possible conflict of interest.

The commission at the end of its March 8 hearing on the rock quarry application directed Hartell to conduct a review of the application, which runs more than 400 pages, and provide findings to the commission by March 17. Hartell’s 17-page review is a hard rebuke of the application, finding a multitude of issues the application failed to address or provide sufficient information for, beginning with a public need for the rock quarry.

“Staff finds no evidence supporting there is a public need in the area for this rock source,” Hartell’s report stated, explaining because Smejkal and company identified a market outside of Union County and thus not a local market, the application failed to satisfy the county’s zoning code.

Hartell also found the applicants did not conduct an alternative site analysis, which was another requirement and thus again the application did not meet the county’s zoning code.

The application also failed to conduct an economic, social, environmental and energy analysis per Oregon administrative rules. Hartell stated Patrick Wingard, the regional representative of the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, in a March 1 letter concurred with that assessment: “One significant gap in the application is the lack of adequate findings under Statewide Planning Goal 5, namely, lack of an analysis of the economic, social, environmental and energy (ESEE analysis) consequences.”

According to Hartell, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wetlands Inventory map identifies several wetlands throughout the mining site, but the applicant “did not address or meet with the Oregon Division of State Lands to have a wetlands delineation completed,” nor did Smejkal prepare a site plan to identify setbacks requirements from wetlands in accordance with the county’s own zoning rules and with state rules.

Hartell’s report also takes the application to task for claiming no conflicts exist well beyond where the quarry would operate due to mitigation measures while never identifying what the conflicts actually are or explaining how to mitigate them.

“The applicant does not address wildlife habitat conflicts; wetland conflicts; water right conflicts; Grande Ronde River conflicts; site access or transportation conflicts,” the report stated, and therefore it again does not meet the standards of state rules.

When it comes to noise from the quarry, Hartell found, the application again falls short, specifically mitigation for the potential of noise from mining activities, such as coupling and uncoupling train cars, loading rock into steel train cars, blasting and more.

“Staff believes that in order to meet this criteria, the applicant would need to conduct a noise study and provide that information in the application and identify the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality noise standards for the Planning Commission to be able to make a comparison and decision on this criteria,” Hartell stated in the report. “The applicant has not provided any data on noise levels the proposed activities will produce or the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality noise standards they will not exceed.”

Furthermore, in a June 7, 2018, letter from the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, Amanda Punton, natural resource specialist, indicated the need for a noise study to keep noise levels below Oregon Department of Environmental Quality compliance levels.

Those were the deficiencies Hartell documented in only the first six pages of his report.

He subsequently found potential conflicts to local roads access, a big game management plan that still seemed to be no more than a draft with no agreement for a plan from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. There was no plan to deal with wetlands near the quarry site, including for salmon habitat. There were several more areas Hartell took issue with in his report.

The planning commission’s 4-0 vote means the recommendation lands before the county board of commissioners on April 7.