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Mountain Green • A group of residents who spared no expense to move away from bad air on the Wasatch Front believe the resumed operation of a gravel pit next to their new subdivision could make all their effort for naught.

Neighbors in the Weber Canyon community of Mountain Green have banded together to oppose a conditional-use permit that would allow Ogden-based contractor Staker Parson Companies to resume operations at its Warner gravel pit, located directly adjacent to a new subdivision.

Nina Rhoades, a member of the community coalition, said she and other residents were led to believe the Warner pit was dormant and scheduled for rezoning and development. They did their due diligence before buying in the subdivision, she said, and found the company's permit for the pit had expired in 2010 and that the county had formal plans to turn the area into a commercial center.

But last summer, Rhoades said, one of her neighbors noticed renewed activity at another nearby gravel pit, also owned by Staker Parson Companies. Then came mailed notices informing residents that Staker Parson had just requested a conditional-use permit to resume operations at Warner.

Dak Maxfield, a real estate manager for Staker Parson Companies, said none of this should have taken residents by surprise — the pit was dormant, but the company had always planned to resume operations when it became economically feasible. There are still 6 acres of unmined material left at the site, he said.

"In those markets where it's just not feasible, we turn inactive and then turn back to activity as the market demands," Maxfield said.

The original conditional-use permit, issued in 1997, gave Staker Parson Companies 13 years to mine and subsequently reclaim the Warner site. Mayfield said the company originally believed it could complete the project within that time frame. But when the economy crashed, mining operations at Warner were halted.

Now that the market has picked up again, Staker Parson has applied for another 10-year conditional-use permit, which the Morgan County Planning Commission recommended for approval at a packed public meeting Thursday night.

The County Council will meet next month to decide the issue.

If the permit is approved, Maxfield said, the company will prepare the Warner site for future development as it wraps up operations over the next decade.

That's small comfort to current Morgan County residents.

"We get nothing in return except health problems," said Jordan Hansen.

Hansen and his wife, Kara, moved to Mountain Green because of Kara's cystic fibrosis, an incurable genetic condition that causes chronic respiratory illness.

With medical management, the prognosis and symptoms can improve, but poor air quality in the Ogden Valley was making Kara's condition worse, Hansen said. It became routine for Kara to spend as long as two weeks in the hospital for more intensive care in addition to her daily at-home treatment.

When they moved to Morgan County, which sits 1,000 feet above the inversion-plagued valley, Kara went 15 months without a hospital stay.

Hansen fears that progress might be lost if the gravel pit reopens. And it's not just his special set of circumstances that have him concerned.

"The health risks are something that have scared all of us," he said.

Not only do gravel pits kick up a lot of dust, which contributes to particulate concentrations in the immediate area, but the types of dust associated with gravel mining can also contain harmful contaminants.

In a letter to the Morgan County Planning Commission, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment raised concerns about the presence of potentially toxic heavy metals, including uranium and arsenic, as well as crystalline silica — a known lung carcinogen that can cause a unique form of lung disease.

"The proximity to existing and future residents of Mountain Green make the proposed gravel pit site an unacceptable health hazard," the letter asserts.

Staker Parson is aware of the risks associated with its industry, and it intends to mitigate neighbors' concerns, Maxfield said. Efforts will be made to keep dust down while processing gravel, he said, and a paved access road, already installed at the Warner site, will help.

The company isn't worried about getting the legal permission it needs to move forward, but it wants to be a good neighbor, Maxfield said.

"We do listen to rational neighbors who are willing to work with us as we work with them, because we are an industry that creates pollution, just like cars and everything else we use," he said.

The planning commission made a bevy of recommendations to the County Council for its consideration of the permit, including that Staker Parson must obtain a sound emissions report and a geotechnical survey and remove garbage from its pits before beginning work. The commission also recommended that no rock-crushing should occur on the Warner site, a small victory for Hansen and other residents at Thursday's meeting.

But the company's past performance will keep residents wary, Hansen said. Rhoades and others assembled a 14-page list of instances in which they believe Staker Parson violated its past permits — including its failure to remediate the Warner and Holley pits before county deadlines.

The document also cites the pits' proximity to residences as a violation of the Morgan County Code.

And it's not just health concerns that have the community worked up. Residents worry property values could suffer — home sales have already fallen through since the conditional-use permit request, Rhoades said. She found a study online that suggests a nearby gravel pit can depress property values by as much as 30 percent — and they've raised concerns about the increased traffic on a two-lane road that wasn't built for large trucks.

All of this has created a delicate situation that must be balanced carefully, said Logan Wilde, chairman of the Morgan County Council.

"I really don't want to step on property rights, but I do understand that there are some concerns," he said. "I have some concerns about the road traffic, and that is really where I am stuck."

The challenge, Wilde said, is that the County Council can only deny the conditional-use permit under certain conditions. And some of the residents' concerns, such as those related to air quality, fall outside the County Council's jurisdiction.

Though residents fear that they are fighting a losing battle, this is not an issue where key players have already made up their minds, Wilde said.

"People are saying that this is just being railroaded through, and it's not," he said. "It's being considered very slowly — as slow as we can hold it."

epenrod@sltrib.com Twitter: @EmaPen Protest and public hearing

The Morgan County Planning Commission will hear the conditional-use request for the Warner gravel pit Thursday at 6:30 p.m. in the Morgan County Courthouse (48 W. Young St.). Mountain Green residents plan to attend the meeting to protest the permit.