Angelo Extends Sand Mine Moratorium

by Barbara Rice

The Angelo Town Board last night extended its sand mine moratorium four months, setting December 31, 2012, as the new deadline and requiring the Planning Committee to present its recommendations on November 1, 2012.   Town Board chairman Tom Leverich said both the Board and the public will receive copies of the report before it is presented at a yet-to-be scheduled public hearing.

Planning Committee member Jim Leverich said the mining portion of the report has been reviewed with Atty. Mike McAlpine.  The committee is now studying blasting use as outlined by Chippewa County's Town of Howard, the impact of loading operations involving rail and truck lines and establishing a fee schedule.

Little Falls Denies CUP to Mathy Sand Mine

by Barbara Rice

Seventy-five town of Little Falls residents crowded into the  town hall Wednesday night to hear the town board reject the request of Mathy Construction Company (Milestone Materials), La Crosse, for a conditional use permit to operate a hundred-acre sand mine in Little Falls.  Town Chair Don Herr and Supervisor Steve Mathews voted for denial.  Supervisor Bryan Olsen dissented.

A number of issues were listed as basis for recommending denial of a CUP to the Monroe County Sanitation, Planning & Zoning Committee.   Objections include potential environmental damage to groundwater and surface waters; undefined hours of mining operations and trucking; number of trucks in use; noise, dust and lighting control; use of Township roads, access to site and aesthetic concerns.   

The County Zoning Committee, the body which issues conditional use permits. will hold a public hearing at  6 p.m. on Monday, August 20, 2012, at the Rolling Hills Auditorium to consider the Mathy request.   At that meeting the Town Board will recommend that the County Committee deny a CUP for Mathy.

 La Crosse Atty. Thomas J. Kieffer, retained by the Board, said that should the Committee fail to accept its recommendation the Town will have an opportunity to challenge the County Zoning Committee decision.

Sand Mine Seeks to Buy More Land Next to Sparta

A sand mine is trying to buy land in the town of Angelo--which has a moratorium on sand mines. Why would a sand mine buy in town ship that doesn't allow sand mines? For one thing, the moratorium is temporary--six months. And, should Angelo make it permanent, the sand mine could always ask the city of Sparta to annex it the land and then approve it as a sand mine site. That's what happened with the US Silica site. See the red question marks in a circle on the map below for the possible location of a second sand mine in Sparta. The big red blocks are existing sand mines--the US Silica site and the Monroe County sand mine site.

Little Falls Town Board Tables Action on Sand Mine for Sixty Days, Eyes Moratorium

The Town Board of Little Falls last week decided to table action on an application from Onalaska-based Mathy Construction to build a 100-acre sand mine. Town chair Don Herr and the two other voting members of the town board, Bryan Olsen and Steve Matthews said there some points of disagreement in the application so they wanted to table the matter for further consideration. They first asked Mathy if the company would mind the town tabled the matter and Mathy agreed. Mathy is asking the county to postpone a county zoning hearing about the sand mine.
Mathy is applying for a conditional use permit that would allow it to use the land, currently zoned for general agriculture and general forestry, for a mine.
Separately, the town board circulated a proposed moratorium on sand mining. Herr said that the Mathy request has to be dealt with before the town can enact the moratorium since its request for its proposed sand mine came before the town considered a moratorium. The town will consider the moratorium at next month's meeting.

Little Falls Planning Commission Rejects Sand Mine, Vote Goes to Town Board

In a vote that took place before a crowd of 60 or 70 people, the planning commission for the town of Little Falls voted 5 to 1 last week to recommend against allowing Onalaska-based Mathy Construction to build a sand mine on a 100-acre site at what was the Howard Pierce tree farm. The planning commission's vote was a recommendation only; it goes before the Town of Little Falls board on Wednesday night. The three voting members of the board will then make a decision on the sand mine. There was much concern about truck traffic. Mathy would truck sand on Hwy. 27, delivering either to a rail line in the city of Sparta or driving it to La Crosse to load it on a barge on the Mississippi. The route would mean trucks carrying tons of sand would be driving past the Sparta Senior High School and the Lawrence Lawson elementary school.

Tara Wetzel,  an environmental manager  for Mathy Construction, spoke about the mine; Mathy also showed did a slide presentation.

Planning committee members who voted against the sand mine were Don Herr, the town chair; Pat Nugent, Marge Peacock, Sue Van Geertruy and Douglas Moskonas. Wayne Turckalski voted for the mine. Town board members who will consider the mine Wednesday night are Herr, Bryan Olsen and Steve Matthews. That meeting will be in the Little Falls town hall, located on the edge of Cataract on County Truck I at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

The Monroe County zoning committee will take up the matter at a meeting at 6 p.m. Monday night at the auditorium in the county offices at Rolling Hills. The zoning committee will vote on the matter no matter what the town board's decision is. If the county zoning committee votes against the sand mine, the matter stops there. If the county zoning committee approves it, the town board has 21 days to veto decision and the matter stops there, according to Alison Elliot, director of the Monroe County zoning office.

Spring Time is Sand Mine Season in Monroe County

In the city of Sparta, work has begun on the U.S. Silica site, which is right next to the most densely populated neighborhood in the city. To see a video, click on read more below. Or, see for yourself. For the best view of what's happening there, ride along the Sparta-Elroy Bicycle Trail, a major tourism attraction. Meanwhile, Unimin continues its work on the Tunnel City sand mine. In Oakdale, there are now three sand mines, either operating, in the works or going through an application process.

This video shows the progress sand mines are making in Sparta and Tunnel City. It shows the trains that make these sites so attractive to sand mines. Note the hills around the Tunnel City sand mine. Unimin will level them to get at sand. It says it will rebuild them, but also says they will not look like the ones that are being destroyed.

Grassroots Movement Pushes for Sand Mine Moratorium in City of Sparta

Two Monroe County townships have said "whoa!" to sand mine development and have passed moratoriums on sand mines. The problem for both of these townships, the town of Angelo and the town of the Sparta, is that they are adjacent to the city of Sparta, which has swiftly annexed land adjacent to the city and in one instance, approved the development of one major sand mine. Sand mine companies continue to put out feelers to buy other property adjacent to the city.

Now there's a movement in the city of Sparta to declare a moratorium on sand mining, as the towns of Sparta and Angelo have done and as the city of Winona, Minn., has also done. The town of Angel's moratorium lays out the rationale for a moratorium. It cites concerns about the impact of sand mining on local infrastructure, on property values (property owners trying to sell homes near the Tunnel City sand mine have had no prospective buyers look at their homes) and on health. The idea: to find out what all a sand mine entails and to decided whether or not to allow sand mining and what regulations to enact if the town decides to allow sand mining. To read the moratorium, a possible model for the city of Sparta, should it choose to pass such a moratorium, click here.

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