By Pat Jenkins
The Dispatch
Randles Sand and Gravel may know before the end of this year if its controversial proposal for a new gravel quarry near Eatonville is a go or a no.
A Pierce County hearing examiner’s decision on plans for the 762-acre quarry site is expected either this month or in early December, potentially completing a review process that has lasted about two years.
Public hearings earlier this year ended with the hearing examiner telling representatives of Randles, the Eatonville School District and the Town of Eatonville to meet and discuss opposition voiced by school and town officials to Randles’ plans. Since then, the respective parties have agreed to conditions that would be placed on the quarry operation if it’s approved by the examiner, according to the county’s Department of Planning and Public Works.
Those conditions include pedestrian and traffic safety measures around the intersection of State Route 161/Washington Avenue and Lynch Creek Road. That area has been a focus of concern in relation to schools that are near the route heavy trucks would travel to and from the quarry.
Stephen Causseaux, the examiner who presided over the hearings April 20 in Eatonville and May 17 in Tacoma, will decide if the county can issue a conditional-use permit for Randles to remove and market hundreds of thousands of tons per year of rock and other material from the quarry. The site is about two miles outside of Eatonville in an unincorporated area of the county.
Randles’ trucks would make trips on Lynch Creek Road, 129th Avenue East and SR-161. People who live beside or near those roads been joined by town and school district officials in criticizing what they described as negative traffic impacts of the project, including traffic. County planners said at the public hearings that county-imposed conditions on the project would adequately address issues raised by opponents.
Randles representatives have said the Rim Rock, as the company has named the project, won’t “ruin” the quiet, rural character of the nearby community or the lifestyles of its residents.
The company has also said road improvements required by the county, including a left-turn lane for SR-161 at the intersection with Lynch Creek Road, will help keep trucks and other traffic moving safely.
School district officials were concerned about the effect of heavily loaded trucks on Lynch Creek Road passing Eatonville Elementary School and nearby sports fields approximately 80 to 100 times a day. The trips would be roughly eight minutes apart, according to project proponents’ estimates.
School Board member Jeff Lucas and others said the public would be better-served if gravel and rocks from the quarry were hauled by train, diminishing the “tremendous impact” of truck trips.
A rail line near the quarry has been discussed by Randles as a way of transporting 300,000 tons of gravel and rocks per year at some point in the first five years of the quarry, but trucking is the company’s preferred mode of transportation to start.
In plans submitted to the county, Randles expects that the quarry could be in operation for 40 years.
Starting in 2016, public comments were nearly unanimous in opposition to the proposed quarry. Letters to the county from individual citizens and town and school district officials objected to what they cited as environmental and traffic-related concerns.
Randles, which is based in Frederickson, has been in business since 1969 as a supplier of sand, gravel and topsoil. It already owns and operates the Lynch Creek Quarry near Eatonville on 419th Street Court East. That quarry is a source of basalt rock that the company trucks as far away as Oregon and Idaho.
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