Official: Quarry Public Hearing Most Contentious In County History

The Riverside County Planning Commission and hundreds of quarry opponents donning orange hats and shirts converged at Rancho Community Church in Temecula Wednesday for what one official called the “largest and most contentious public hearing in Riverside County history.”

The hearing was the third in a series to decide the fate of Liberty Quarry, a 414-acre mile-long open-pit aggregate mine planned just south of Temecula’s city boundary.

The quarry applicant is Watsonville, Calif.-based Granite Construction Inc.

The hearing heated up quickly when numerous consultants hired by the City of Temecula criticized the county's Environment Impact Report on the proposed project.

Members of the Temecula City Council also criticized the report, and they blasted Granite for being misleading.

“This is the greatest attempt by any entity, large or small, to pull the wool over the collective eyes of the more than 2 million residents of our county,” Temecula City Councilman Jeff Comerchero said during the hearing.

Among key criticisms Wednesday were those directed at a traffic study in which Granite Construction claimed the proposed quarry would take truck traffic off Riverside County roads and freeways because big rigs would travel shorter distances to load up with aggregate.

But the traffic estimates were based on a count from 2004, and on additional  research conducted during a one-day count, said Chris Gray, a traffic consultant with Fehr & Peers, which the city hired to study Granite’s claims.

The study counted aggregate trucks passing several points near the proposed site without finding out where the trucks were going or from where they came, Gray said.

“Without an idea where the aggregate trucks began or end, you can’t calculate the reduction (in traffic),” he told the commissioners. “We can’t fathom why this method was used.”

Granite found 1,938 aggregate trucks passed a location near Lake Elsinore on I-15 in 2004. Based on the company’s one-day study, it increased that number to 2,626.

A study by an independent company in 2009 contradicted that adjustment, Gray said. It counted only 458.

The company similarly miscalculated at two other locations, he said.

At a point in Wildomar on the I-15, it counted 931 trucks in 2004. It adjusted the number to 1,618 to represent traffic today. The independent researcher, on the other hand, found only 632 in 2009.

The local quarry controversy resembles one in San Diego County that led to restrictions on quarries being approved there.

“Leaders there have said they won’t approve them because they’re too ‘politically sensitive.’ Really?” Comerchero said.