Lexington Quarry is requesting the county's approval to expand its operations on the southwest hill farther west (to the right). Behind the hill is the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve.










A Rock and a Hard Place

No one likes quarries, but no one knows how to live without them

By Gloria I. Wang

Photographs by Paul Myers

Just off Alma Bridge Road, nestled in a canyon near the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve, is a rock-crushing quarry that has served Los Gatos, Saratoga, Campbell and San Jose for decades. The operation, Lexington Quarry, is now at the center of a dispute involving Santa Clara County planners, local environmental agencies and adjacent neighbors.

The residents of the homes overlooking the operation say the quarry has been violating several county-issued restrictions, faulting the quarry for failing to comply with the guidelines and the county for failing to enforce them. Most neighbors say they don't want to shut the quarry down, but merely make sure it's following the rules.

For more than 40 years, workers have mined the sides of the quarry for rock to use for building public roads and homes, using a standard "benching" method to excavate rock. The most recent major project that used rock from the quarry was the Highway 87 improvement project in summer 2001.

In 1989, Tracy-based West Coast Aggregates Inc. acquired the quarry and completed the expansion process that the previous owners had begun, increasing the total operating space from 26 acres--the northwest hillside--to 54 acres, adding the southwest hillside.

The original 26 acres have been completely mined and deemed reclaimed--returned to a satisfactory state in terms of landscaping and vegetation--by the county, as required by law. The "new" 26 acres are still being mined by the quarry.

According to Richard DeAtley, president of West Coast Aggregates, Lexington Quarry is one of six remaining quarries in the county. More than a decade ago, DeAtley says, there were 15. Those left include Hanson Permanente Quarry in Cupertino and Stevens Creek Quarry, near Cupertino.

Aggregates such as rock are essential in the building of just about anything. Even an entirely wood structure needs nails, made from minerals such as sand and stone, to hold it together. "We're probably not loved, but we're absolutely necessary. We try to be efficient and good and clean," De Atley says. "You can't build anything without aggregate. Nothing."

Because the quarry and adjacent neighbors are on unincorporated county land, the quarry needs a conditional-use permit from the county in order to operate. Each permit must be renewed every 10 years with an annual inspection; the last use permit the quarry acquired was in 1991. In addition to seeking renewal of the permit, West Coast Aggregate now wants to add six acres to its mining plan.

DeAtley says the expansion is merely a modification of what's already been approved. The 1991 plan called for the benches--man-made terraces spaced 100 feet apart resulting from mining--on the southwest hill to end in sharp, L-shaped corners. DeAtley is asking to extend the benches farther west so the slopes follow the natural terrain. That would bring an increased three to four years' worth of mining material, DeAtley says. In addition, the quarry wants more space to allow for several large stormwater ponds for proper draining of runoff from the hillside. The quarry is also requesting permission to operate on Saturdays--most likely every Saturday during the intensified construction season of summer through September--but no weekends during the winter, DeAtley says.

Muriel Applebaum has lived on Blackberry Hill Road, directly atop the "new" hillside, for five years. Over the summer, she was awakened at 5 a.m. every day by the noise from the quarry--sounds of trucks being loaded with rocks, dirt being pushed around, back-up beepers on vehicles and the crushing and sifting of rocks. Even on Saturdays, the quarry would often be in operation, disrupting a peaceful weekend for its immediate neighbors. That violated the county's condition: weekday-only use, and not before 6:30 a.m.

Applebaum contacted County Supervisor Don Gage in late July and was told by his office that the quarry was up for a use permit renewal. Applebaum then started notifying her neighbors on Blackberry Hill Road and Aztec Ridge Drive by calling them, ringing their doorbells and putting notices in their mailboxes.

The neighbors first brought their complaints in October 2001 to the Santa Clara Planning Commission, the body that gives the final stamp of approval for the renewal and expansion. That decision was continued to November and then December and then Feb. 7, 2002, because commissioners wanted more in-depth studies of the neighbors' issues.


Richard DeAtley (right), president of West Coast Aggregates Inc., shows the expansion plans for Lexington Quarry while Chuck Barnett, the quarry's regulatory, permitting and environmental manager, looks on.




Santa Clara County Associate Planner Gary Rudholm says the neighbors raised some good questions at the October hearing; as a result, planning commissioners ordered additional information as a supplement to the quarry's existing environmental impact report. All the continuances were necessary because the county decided to hire an environmental consultant for the project, and because additional research and visits to the site were needed, Rudholm says.

DeAtley says the quarry management had given the neighbors their phone numbers and email addresses, and had asked them to call with any complaints. He was surprised when the neighbors went directly to the county and to the press instead with their concerns.

Alex Liniecki moved into his custom-built home on Aztec Ridge Drive 25 years ago. His main concern is with the dust, which he says has caused him to sneeze and cough during the summer and fall. He says the winds blow the dust from the quarry in a spiral stream. Most of the time, Liniecki says, the wind is blowing toward his house, just east of the completed hillside.

"Whenever they start working, the dust is prevalent," Liniecki says. "The problem is, these people don't water the dust"--another one of the conditions for operation.

DeAtley admits that the quarry violated some of the conditions of use over the summer, but only because Caltrans was pressuring the operation to transport material to the Highway 87 site outside of normal commuter hours, he says. The quarry did not ask for a temporary loosening of restrictions as it had done in the past.

But DeAtley claims the quarry didn't realize neighbors would have a problem with the extended hours or usage. "We hadn't heard from anyone in 12 years, so sometimes you do fall asleep," DeAtley says.

"Admittedly, that job had more traffic than we ever had in our quarry," DeAtley says. That traffic was combined with trucks from the Guadalupe College demolition, which operated after business hours. "That volume of trucks may never happen again in this quarry," DeAtley says.

As for the issues of dust and noise, DeAtley says the quarry is taking active measures to minimize both. Joe Tona, quarry operations manager, says the back-up beepers on vehicles are required by law to be a certain volume so that workers wearing earplugs can hear them. At the same time, Tona is testing out "smart alarms" that one could only hear within a certain distance of the vehicle.

According to DeAtley, the quarry has been "well within" the decibel levels allowed by law. "Not to say that [the neighbors] can't hear it," DeAtley says. "But you would be very hard-pressed to hear the operation from there," pointing to some Blackberry Hill Road homes.

The quarry is also proposing switching the type of crushing it does to a method called "total washing," which would reduce the amount of dust that comes from rock crushing. But the quarry is naturally dusty in the summer, especially at the beginning of the day, when operations are just starting up.

Liniecki, on the other hand, says the dust is a year-round nuisance. "I cleaned my swimming pool two days ago," Liniecki says, and then points to the water, which has a thin layer of dirt on the bottom.


A bulldozer moves rock back and forth at Lexington Quarry.




Blackberry Hill resident Dennis Sorahan says there is a constant layer of dust on his lawn chairs in the backyard, on his roof and on his windows; Applebaum says it gets inside the rooms in her house that face the quarry.

"The planning department has not done anything to enforce the permit, as far as I can see," Applebaum says.

Perhaps the main concern of nearby residents, however, is not with the dust, nor with the noise, but with the quarry's hillsides.

According to Blackberry Hill Road homeowner JoEllen Fishman, state and county regulations require the quarry to return, or reclaim, the land to a condition consistent with the undisturbed area adjacent to it. Although the county has said that it's satisfied with the reclamation measures done on the northeast hill, Fishman says most of the vegetation that's been planted is dead or dying, and the quarry has taken little action to remedy it.

"It looks like it has to be a moon crater that will be with us forever," Udi Fishman, JoEllen's husband, says. If the residents made the effort to landscape in order to blend in with the hillside, so should the quarry, the Fishmans say.

"You know, the scar on the neighborhood, that's a permanent thing," Applebaum says. "It's almost painful to look at it and realize that the county has accepted that the landscape plans are adequate."

"From the angle I look at, I see nothing but nudity at the side of the hill," Glen Raft, longtime Aztec Ridge Drive resident, says. Those hiking on St. Joseph's Hill are unable to see any of the vegetation that has been planted.

"I suspect [the quarry] has a right to conduct its business, but the neighbors have a right not to be disturbed by them, and the environment has a right not to be damaged by them," Raft says.

DeAtley says, however, the quarry was there long before any of the residents moved in. In the 1970s, the town of Los Gatos had been actively opposed to the homes built along Aztec Ridge Drive, but the quarry had not shared in that opposition.

DeAtley says when he took over the quarry in 1989, the northeast hill had already been mined out, and the poor reclamation measures had been established by the previous owners.

"We more or less inherited the upper portions," says Chuck Barnett, the quarry's regulatory, permitting and environmental manager. West Coast Aggregate was physically unable to go up to the top few terraced benches and replant the dead vegetation, but there are active efforts to re-establish the trenches on the bottom benches so that more nutrients are introduced into the soil. After trenching, more trees will be replanted; at the same time, a more efficient watering system is being installed.

More than $189,000 has been spent by the quarry on landscaping in the past eight years. "All I could say is, the rules are the rules and we'll comply with the rules," DeAtley says.

DeAtley points to some of the trees on the upper portions, which have grown to a height of 16 feet, but unfortunately can only be seen by those looking downward into the quarry. At the same time, reclamation is a 25-year process, DeAtley says--"Trees don't grow overnight."

Alex Liniecki, Aztec Ridge Drive resident, says he started coughing and sneezing because of the dust that came from Lexington Quarry over the summer.










Making plants survive on the old hillside "has been an ongoing issue," says Gary Rudholm, of the county planning department. Another problem is that the Surface Mine and Reclamation Act, a 1976 state law, prevents the county from enforcing reclamation in mines dated before the law went into effect. The county is now checking to see if any of the reclamation was planted before 1976.

To Sorahan, the reclamation issue is more important than all the others. When he bought his property 20 years ago, Sorahan says, he was assured that the hillside would be turned into a forest when mining was completed. "All I want for the quarry to do is do what they said they were going to do in the beginning," he says.

"What's going to happen when they've got all they're going to get? Drive off into the sunset or what?" Sorahan says, expressing his fear that the hillsides will remain bare.

DeAtley says he believes the quarry will become open space in 17 years, after all the rock has been mined, but Del Woods, the senior acquisition planner for the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, which is responsible for the Sierra Azul Preserve next door, says the district will most likely not want the quarry because it will be too expensive, difficult and time-consuming to maintain as open space.

"Owning the actual scarred quarry, I don't know how readily we would jump into that. Now if that was restored to a natural, pristine habitat, that's a different story," Woods says.

Woods has written some letters to the county expressing a concern about the visual impact of the quarry's hillsides, since "the current restoration isn't working too well." The open space district won't be taking any action, however, until the draft environmental review report is released. Woods hopes that some sort of flagging will be done on the site, so that the scope of the expansion will be visible, and then the district will be able to evaluate the impact of the project on the surrounding open space.

JoEllen Fishman is also worried about the quarry's effects on the water supply. There is a creek that follows Limekiln Road, Fishman says, and then flows into Lexington Reservoir. Because there is no vegetation on the hillside to interrupt the flow of water, mud and silt are freely mixed in with the runoff and then deposited into the reservoir.

Santa Clara Water District's Mike Di Marco says the district could find no evidence that the quarry has fouled reservoir water.

Instead, the district has requested plans from the quarry for future restoration of the creek when mining operations have ceased. The water district has also asked for more information about the stormwater basins that the quarry wants to build at the base of the hills.

According to JoEllen Fishman, another condition established by the county in 1991 was that the steepest slope of the benches had to be at a ratio of 1:1, or 45 degrees. Instead, the quarry violated the condition and cut some slopes at 63 degrees, she says.

While not all of the slopes are at 45 degrees, DeAtley says it's an issue that does not affect the neighbors. "What they're concerned about is noise, dust and ... reclamation," DeAtley says. "Anything other than that is a leaning toward, 'You got a blade of grass out of whack, so we'll slap you on the wrist.'"

DeAtley says the county is more concerned with proper reclamation than with little things. He claims the county has told him that they care about the end result, but the quarry can use any measures to achieve that end result.

"It's all been orchestrated. It's all been under the watchful eye of several agencies. The inflammatory statements don't really accomplish anything," DeAtley says. At last count, DeAtley found that the quarry had to comply with the regulations of 86 local, state and federal agencies.

If Saturday use of the quarry is approved, Applebaum says, the recreational uses of the reservoir will be affected. The trucks using Alma Bridge Road may pose a threat to the joggers and bicyclists in the area.


JoEllen (left) and Udi Fishman say they think Lexington Quarry has violated its county-issued conditional-use permit based on photographs and maps they obtained.




DeAtley, however, says the quarry has never received complaints about the traffic endangering recreational users, and does not expect it to be a problem. If there isn't an "outrageous amount of problems," DeAtley says, then the extended use should be fine.

JoEllen Fishman emphasizes the fact that most of the neighbors are not trying to put the quarry out of business, but instead "simply want the government to work the way it's supposed to."

"The system doesn't have checks and balances," Udi Fishman says. "There's no built-in enforcement, agency or person, other than suing them, which isn't the right solution."

Glen Raft is one of the few residents who would like to see the quarry go away. According to Raft, the quarry no longer belongs in the area because of the way the neighborhood has grown.

"I think their operation is unreasonable. Perhaps they should start looking now for another site to start digging gravel from," Raft says.

Rudholm, the county associate planner, says each person has a different perception of enforcement. If someone continues to be in violation of a county-issued permit, the planning commission will eventually either revoke or modify the permit. "It's very seldom we have to go to the extent of revoking a permit," Rudholm says. "We don't race on in, slap handcuffs on them and haul them off to jail."


Lexington Quarry's southwest hill is in the process of being mined. The hill faces Aztec Ridge Drive, and quarry operations are at its base.




As for closing down operations, DeAtley says he believes the county will do everything it can to keep the quarry running. Aggregates in the county are a "diminishing resource," he says. "[The supply] doesn't replenish itself. Once it's gone, it's gone."

Plus, Joe Tona adds, it serves the county well to have as many local quarries as possible. Much of the cost of aggregates stem from transport costs, as opposed to the cost of the material itself.

In the county's written policy on resource conservation, it says, "For a growing, highly urbanized area such as Santa Clara County, ensuring adequate supplies of such materials from local sources is of fundamental import to the economy of the county and region. Because transport costs are a significant aspect of overall supply and pricing, it is imperative that local mineral resource supplies be conserved for maximum long-term availability."

The county planning commission is scheduled to revisit the quarry issue Feb. 7 at 1:30 p.m. when it meets at the county building, 70 W. Hedding St., San Jose. Planners are expected to continue the matter for another 60 days so that a comprehensive environmental impact review can be completed.

DeAtley says he is confident that the county will make the right decision. "When all is said and done, we'll have a party, and we're all going to eat and drink together and we'll all get along," DeAtley says. "That's my ultimate goal."

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