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John Hollenhorst reporting Some of the biggest sand and gravel companies in the state have been allowed to operate for years without mining permits, and a whistle-blower says that's against the law. We took what we found to state regulators in charge of the sand and gravel operations.
A recently retired regulator says the law requires a shut-down of gravel pits, an interpretation disputed by his former boss. But the agency has shut down little guys, mom-and-pop-sized companies that don't have permits. Several big companies have been given extra time to straighten out the paperwork year after year after year.
Three years ago the state went after small landscapers for digging up decorative boulders. State regulators shut them down and fined them.
In September 2005, Mark Mesch of the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining said, "You have to be permitted to do that operation through the state of Utah."
Mesch recently retired after 19 years as a mid-level manager with the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining. Now he's critical of his old agency. "I held the public's trust. I think they're falling down on that," he said.
Many sand and gravel companies have mined without a permit for years, some for more than six years, after mining permits became mandatory. They were exempt from mining laws until rule changes and court battles in the 1990s. But in 2001 the Utah Supreme Court ruled they are not exempt if they're mining into bedrock.
At some quarries that practice dates back several decades. They dynamite bedrock, extract it, crush it into gravel. The companies say they've always done what the state requires. They argue they are vital to Utah.
Brent Smith, vice president of Clyde Companies/Geneva Rock, said, "We've got to have roads. We've got to have foundations. We've got to have sidewalks. Without the gravel, we don't have any of that."
State regulators accepted that reasoning and didn't immediately require mining permits in 2001. Agency director John Baza says it's a transition period, different from startup landscaping companies.
"It probably would not have been in the public interest at that point to say, ‘Shut down. Stop until we can fix the paperwork on this,'" he said.
Instead they launched a paperwork marathon, proposing, revising, negotiating permits. Critics say it's a way to skirt the law. It continues to this day. Six years later, nine of 27 quarries still don't have permits. Staker, near Beck Street, got a permit just last year.
"We could do it quicker if we had more bodies to apply to the problem," Baza said.
The point of the law is to ensure that the mining plan is safe and environmentally sound before the mining is done, and to make sure the site is properly cleaned up and stabilized after the mining is finished.
Utah's Administrative Code says if a company is "...without a valid permit... the Division will immediately order a cessation of mining operations."
According to Mark Mesch, "The law is very clear that if you are mining without a permit, you are in violation of state law."
"I know that our legal counsel has told us and instructed us that this is an appropriate course of action for the division to take," Baza said.
Brent Smith said, "I'm sure it was not the intent of the Legislature to create hardship for anybody currently operating."
Stan Porter, a North Salt Lake City councilman, said, "Well, I think the state should follow the law. There's a conflict of interest to some degree because the state uses a lot of gravel."
Meanwhile, the paperwork goes back and forth, the companies push farther into bedrock, the cliffs and terraces get higher and higher. Mesch said, "I think the public has been exposed to serious safety hazards."
But Baza said, "We are capable at any time of issuing cessation orders if they pose an imminent threat."
Baza says the companies have posted reclamation bonds sufficient to insure cleanup and stabilization when mining ends. But Mesch scoffs at that. He says it's impossible to estimate reclamation costs when mining goes on, and the state is still -- after the better part of a decade -- negotiating what the mining plans will be.
E-mail: hollenhorst@ksl.com
