(May 2008)  As Montana’s population continues to grow, and as more new houses, roads, and highways are built, many new gravel pits (also called open-cut mines) are being developed in the state.  Montana’s laws contain only minimal provisions for their regulation.  A spate of recent court rulings have left many people concerned about the pits and their impact on neighborhoods and the environment.

Recent News

Judge stays two controversial Gallatin County gravel pit permits (Aug. 19, 2008)

On April 23rd, 2008, Helena district court judge Jeffrey Sherlock ordered the Department of Environmental Quality to issue a permit for a new gravel pit near Bozeman even though the environmental analysis for the operation wasn’t complete.The open-cut mining law, which governs gravel pits, states that DEQ must issue a permit within 60 days of the application being deemed complete.  Sherlock ruled that the 60-day time frame superseded the less specific time frame for analyzing environmental impacts.

Click on map for larger image.  Map by Gateway Opencut Mining Action Group (GOMAG).

The problem is that DEQ has more than 60 additional gravel pit permit applications that have been under consideration for more than 60 days.  Immediately after Sherlock’s ruling three more companies filed legal actions seeking immediate issuance of their permits.  This prompted MEIC, and citizens living near some of the new gravel pits in the Bozeman area, to try to refine the permit process while the companies pushed to have the permits issued at once.

The broader implications from Sherlock’s decision are ominous.  First, with more than 60 applications pending, DEQ, in a worst-case scenario, could have to issue all of those permits without any environmental review.  Second, there are many other permitting laws that have specific time frames for issuing permits.  The precedent of Sherlock’s ruling could force DEQ to issue other permits without adequate analysis of the impacts of the proposed activities.

So far, all of the gravel pits under legal challenge are in Gallatin County.  Three pits are in the Belgrade area and three more are near Gallatin Gateway (see map).  Groups of citizens in both areas have been working to stop the pits.  They are concerned about dust, noise, water quality impacts, and traffic.  The groups successfully lobbied for emergency interim  zoning in Gallatin County to give the public more control over the process of siting the pits.  It was the likelihood of additional requirements from the emergency zoning that prompted the initial suit in Sherlock’s court.

The issue of gravel pits isn’t confined to Gallatin County.  In Lewis and Clark County a group of citizens in East Helena is engaged in a similar effort to halt a major new gravel pit.  MEIC has also helped other groups in Flathead and Missoula Counties in their efforts against gravel pits.

Since Sherlock’s ruling, MEIC and the concerned groups have been trying to intervene in the legal process and slow things down—so far without success.  Recently, another Helena district court judge, Dorothy McCarter, ordered DEQ to issue three permits for gravel pits with no environmental analysis.  She also ordered DEQ to speed up its processing of two more permits that could be restricted by the emergency zoning in Gallatin County.

This mess could have been avoided if DEQ had done an adequate job of defending itself in the initial case before Judge Sherlock.  In that case, DEQ never argued that the environmental review mandated by the Montana Environmental Policy Act is necessary to satisfy Montanans’ constitutional rights to public participation and to a clean and healthful environment.  The review is the only opportunity for the public to have meaningful input into the application for new gravel pits and to ensure that the environment is being protected.  Judge Sherlock never considered these issues.

The question now is: what will happen next?  The answer: we don’t know.  There are permit applications in many different stages of review right now.  There are those that the court has ordered DEQ to issue, those that DEQ is still processing, those that are still pending before a court, and more that are now subject to the emergency interim zoning that was just passed in Gallatin County.

MEIC intends, with help from Bozeman-area residents, to make the public’s voice heard, and to ensure that Montanans’ constitutional rights are protected from the permitting of un-analyzed gravel pits.

IN THE NEWS

• Judge to reconsider gravel pit ruling (by DANIEL PERSON, Bozeman Chronicle Staff Writer, July 29, 2008)

   

• Gravel mining pits neighbor against company (by JENNIFER McKEE, Gazette State Bureau, July 28. 2008)

• Lolo gravel pit: Plans thwarted - County votes to zone area residential (by CHELSI MOY of the Missoulian, June 1, 2008)

• Legislature asked to revisit open-cut mining permit laws (Great Falls Tribune, May 14, 2008)

• DEQ issues gravel permits without assessment (Great Falls Tribune, May 7, 2008)

• Between rocks and a hard place (by JODI HAUSEN, Bozeman Chronicle Staff Writer, Feb, 24, 2008)