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"Lone Star Mining Operation:
Proposed Grading Permit Revision"

"King County is conducting a review of Northwest Aggregate's (aka Lone Star) proposal to update its existing Surface Mining Reclamation Permit and Grading Permit for their sand and gravel mining on Maury Island. The existing site is approximately 235 acres and is located in portions of sections 28 and 29, Township 22 north and Range 3 east, on the eastern edge of Maury Island along Admiralty Inlet.

This is how the King County Department of Development formally describes Lone Star's intention to mine 7.5 million tons of gravel a year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for a duration somewhere between 11 to 35 years, from their inactive gravel mine on Maury Island: it's going to be an update to an existing grading permit, despite the fact that no real activity of any large scale has taken place there for 20 years.

This gravel is to be barged from Maury Island by 4 10,000-ton barge trips daily, or more smaller barges, 7 days a week, to some as-yet undisclosed location where it will be off-loaded and trucked up to SeaTac Airport to be used as fill for the third runway...

The DDES/Lone Star mining web page

and, at DDES, the:

Maury Island Gravel Mine Draft EIS Table of Contents
July 1999 (E98E0502)

and my local copy of the DEIS Summary:

Maury Island Gravel Mine Draft EIS Summary

The King County Department of Development and Environmental Services has published the draft Environmental Impact Statement, essentially saying the project will cause no significant environmental impacts!

Surprising? No: the draft EIS was written by Lone Star consultants, and rubber-stamped by DDES, despite the presence of such trivial issues as:

the minor little detail of arsenic-contaminated soils, soils contaminated by the old ASARCO smelter across the Sound to the south in Ruston, which we'll take care of by:
"...a lined and covered containment cell located on the north side of the property..."
Hmm.. this is going to be accomplished by a hermetically-sealed berm up to 30 feet high and 2,100 feet long!
Can you say "toxic waste dump"?

And right here on little ol' Maury Island, too!
and despite the proximity of the mining to the location of Maury Island's water table:
"...a fifteen foot separation would be maintained between the bottom of the mine floor and the groundwater table."
Good: certainly no water's gonna leak through fifteen feet of gravel!
and despite the effects of propeller wash from the tugboats moving four or more 10,000-ton barges daily, on the eelgrass beds that provide cover for returning Chinook salmon, because:
"...no eelgrass or kelp is present..."
which a lot of people find pretty surprising; but just in case:
"...tugboats would typically be aligned to the barge during loading, with the propeller wash oriented parallel to or away from shore at a depth where eelgrass does not grow."
which is cool, because we all know there isn't any eelgrass there, anyway!

Basically, DDES never met a big-bucks project it didn't like, and the rich and the powerful always get what they want from DDES -- all in the name of Customer Service!

Meanwhile, the Port of Seattle is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars doing noise remedy retro-fits to houses and public buildings that are under the current landing and takeoff patterns of the existing two runways, and helping sell homes at "market value" for those homeowners who want to get out from under the existing noise!

So we've got a problem -- the noise from a busy airport in a densely-populated urban area -- and the Port of Seattle and DDES and Lone Star are going to make it worse by digging a big chunk out of Maury Island and building a third runway at SeaTac airport, and then after the noise problem's worse, your tax dollars will get to remedy that, too!

Can you say: "Your Government at work!"

GoTo www.FinchHaven.com
GoTo Vashon Island Links
GoTo The Lone Star/Maury Island Draft EIS Meeting!
GoTo Maury Island Gravel Mine Draft EIS

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"Lone Star Mining Operation:Proposed Grading Permit Revision"