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Dear Railroad Safety Personnel:
Attached is a letter to Routt County CO regarding this gravel pit and concrete plant. In the last 30 days there has been increased use and the new owner and operator plan on going into full scale production for many years without a public process or highway safety improvements.
We are assuming that your Railroad Access permit for this operation is very limted given that only a small one lane crossing is installed only 55" or less from the highway shoulder. We also know there has been very little use in the last 15 years or more so safety concerns did not become evident until this sudden increase in activity.
Please advise us, Routt County Planning, Colorado Access director Dan Roussin, and Colorado Division of Reclamation and Mining of any limitations you have for this access and if there will be required upgrades if the intensity of use were to go to 100, 000 tons or more and 5, 000 to 10, 000 individual crossings were to occur at this location.
Below is our letter to Routt County regarding some of the problems with this operation.
We hope you have a chance to look at this access problem and will require the necessary upgrades in coordination with Colorado Department of Transportation to require improvements before there is a terrible accident at this insufficient site before any significant trucking occurs.
Rob Thvedt [protected]
Tony Connell [protected]
August 23, 2017
Routt County Commissioners
Routt County Planning Department
Routt County Planning Commission
Regarding: Bear River Gravel and Concrete Plant
Protest of Non-conforming status and expansion of use. Unsafe Access Concerns. Request for special hearing.
Via Email and Mail
Dear Routt County Commissions and Planning Staff:
We are writing this as two of the adjacent landowners to Bear River Gravel Pit and Concrete plant. We have observed many years of inactivity with almost no reclamation. Recently we observed new operations and received structure agreement requests from a new operator. Those agreement requests are very alarming and said mining plans have a 2030 date. All of this has happened with no public process. Most importantly, this operation is occurring with significant safety issues for the highway/railroad access and possibly for water and air quality safeguards have not likely been installed and brought up to any reasonable standard. The highway access issues are egregious in this operation. There is a one lane railroad crossing just 55’ from the highway shoulder which backs up trucks/vehicles accessing or leaving the site; especially when a train movement occurs where no trucks can wait without having an impact on the 65 mph highway. Trucks coming from Steamboat turn from a 65 mph lane. Traffic passes on the shoulder at high speeds right at the driveway used by the Thvedt’s. Any more than one truck turning in or leaving the pit will be dangerous to everyone, but especially to the Thvedt family, without a turn lane trucks entering the pit from the west will be backing up traffic just after a 65 mph downhill curve and onto that curve with any trucks at all without deceleration or any acceleration lanes.
Just today Mr. Thvedt observed a single truck with a conveyor turning into the gravel pit from the west backed up eastbound traffic 16 cars deep stopped from the entrance up the hill and curve to the west. This is without gravel trucks or concrete trucks or a train movement. The access is dangerous and should not be allowed to be used for commercial purposes with 2017 traffic counts. This isn’t the 1950’s with a small time operation, short trucks, and traffic counts which had lots of gaps and slower speeds.
We believe the “grandfather – non-conforming” status of this gravel pit was voided many times over many years through lack of oversight or from fraudulent filings. We believe the county, owner, previous owner, and operator should be held liable for any accident caused by avoiding the public process which would have surely triggered upgrades other gravel pits and mining/oil and gas operations have completed to protect the public safety and mitigate their impacts.
We formally request review of the non-conforming status of the Bear River Gravel Operation and Use of the Concrete Manufacturing Plant. There are many issues with this operation getting started after many years of inactivity and we believe documentation will prove the entire pit and concrete plant has been inactive for many years and its non-conforming status expired many years and multiple times in the last 20 years. The County has access to records which likely prove out that this pit is required to come through a new permitting process. They could also require the landowner and previous landowner/operator to produce supporting records if they dispute our daily observations and have proof of non-conforming operations.
County Records would include:
1. Sales Tax Records – You can’t have 180 days or more a year of an operation without sales. Colorado law requires sales tax licenses. You should have some sales tax for gravel and some for concrete every year.
2. County use tax – All gravel pits (should) pay use tax on gravel inventory produced and sold. You should have some tax paid every year for an ongoing operation.
Operation Records which should be available for anyone operating a legal sand and gravel and concrete production operation:
1. Federal Mining Safety records require a number of items regarding production of sand and gravel. A few include
a. Production reports annually
b. Man-hour reports for production
c. Safety inspections when producing crushed products or washed products (concrete plant input)
2. State of Colorado also has requirements
a. Colorado Air Pollution permits for the Concrete Plant, gravel processing equipment, generators, fugitive dust for the mining permit. The concrete plant permit reporting will require how many CY produced, hours of production, and tons of inputs. All of these permits have reporting for production quantity and inputs such as gallons of diesel fuel
3. The concrete plant operation will show a spike in utility use. Yampa Valley Electric bills will increase significantly when operating if the plant uses line power electricity.
4. An ongoing concrete plant requires dry powder cement to manufacture concrete. You should be able to get copies of dry bulk cement and additives for every year of operation.
5. Diesel fuel shipped to the site. All equipment uses significant diesel fuel per hour. Mining and loading equipment will use a significant amount of fuel if operating. A front end loader by itself uses 30 to 100 gals per day. That does not included screening, crushing, washing equipment.
6. Stormwater management plan reports, storm event reporting, interim inspections, and annual monitoring is a federal clean waters requirement. If there are no stormwater reports or permits for this pit and operation there are even more reasons for permit scrutiny along the Yampa River and near our wells.
7. Federal Tax records. Agricultural users have to provide the tax schedule to maintain their favorable agricultural status. Asking to see a tax schedule showing sales income and production costs with labor costs which show mining and production activity of 180 days or more is a fair requirement.
These are reasonable documents and reports for legitimate operators. They won’t be available if the claim of continuous operation is fraudulent and provided to avoid the proper permitting and public safety improvements which should be required for a legitimate permitted gravel pit and concrete manufacturing operation.
We have done a little preliminary research looking at aerial mapping from 1999. None of those maps show active mining or significant stockpiles of gravel for sale including the variety of gravel needed for concrete production. Both of us remember gravel and the plant being used for a specific downtown highway project in 2010. Otherwise the mining and concrete was discontinued and not used for many long periods…..literally years at a time.
Please advise us of your decision whether or not to stop operations until a new permit hearing is scheduled. Also, please advise us if the County sales tax and property tax records will be available for reasonable inspection since these should be easily attained in the County records. If we need to request under the Freedom of Information Act request please advise us that this is your determination. It is time for transparency to the public and adjacent landowners regarding this parcel. Our safety and the safety of the public is in your hands.
Respectfully requested:
Rob Thvedt
39120 Thompson Lane
Mailing
POB 774003
Steamboat Springs, CO 80477
Tony A. Connell
23690 W US 40 – Partner
Mailing
2673 Jacob Circle Unit 100
Steamboat Springs, CO 80487
CC:
Clyde and Sally Lane
Meadow Trout LLC
David Evans
Gary Neale – Trustee
Holly Limited Partnership LLLP
Colorado Division of Mining and Reclamation
Colorado Department of Transportation – Access Permit Section
Union Pacific Railroad