San Joaquin River near Fresno has been abused long enough. We can’t allow blast mining
Can we leave the poor San Joaquin River alone?
Please? For once?
Fresno and the San Joaquin River have been stuck in an abusive relationship for more than 100 years. We take and take and take — water, salmon, construction aggregate, every resource it has — and leave nothing but permanent scars.
This gross imbalance needs to end. We’ve arrived at the moment when the community must stomp down its collective foot and tell those who want to continue stripping California’s second-longest river and pillaging her for profit, “That’s enough.”
Back in January (doesn’t that seem like eons ago?) I alerted readers to the impending threat of prolonged gravel mining near the river just north of town, via methods even more destructive than previously used.
The next turn of the wheel in Cemex’s proposal to modify its existing aggregate mining and processing operations along Friant Road occurred earlier this month when the Fresno County Department of Public Works and Planning issued a Notice of Preparation for the project’s Environmental Impact Report.
This procedural move opened a 30-day window for all agencies, organizations and private citizens to submit comments “that address environmental concerns” about the proposed project. That period closes July 6.
Oh boy, where do we begin?
Time to sound alarm
Even though we are relatively early in what’s sure to be a lengthy public process, the time for sounding the alarm is now.
An avalanche of comments opposing Cemex’s scheme, accompanied by phone calls to your representative on the Fresno County Board of Supervisors, would be a clear signal the community wants heavy industry along the river phased out in favor of the environment and recreation.
Tell the politicians and bureaucrats their priorities have been out of whack long enough. And that they’ll be held accountable.
Aggregate mining has been a fixture on the San Joaquin since 1913, decades before Friant Dam curtailed its flows. (Those ponds you see at various points along the river are old pits that have been reclaimed.) Hardly any spot near or in Fresno was spared. Only a few slivers of the natural riparian forest remain.
So much mining has taken place, in fact, that the river is nearly tapped out. Vulcan, Cemex’s neighbor and competitor, stopped digging in 2017 and shifted focus to the Kings River. In addition, the permits for Cemex’s Rockfield plant are nearly set to expire.
Now Cemex seeks the county’s blessing to keep at it for another century, based on a self-serving assertion the region needs their materials for future concrete and asphalt. Except instead of using surface methods, digging gravel, sand and crushed stone from stream-bed deposits, the multinational corporation wants to blast and drill a 600-foot deep pit into the hard rock.
We as a community cannot let that happen. The San Joaquin needs time to be healed and enjoyed, rather than exploited within an inch of its life.
Do policies mean anything?
The Notice of Preparation lists a number of “anticipated impacts” that will be studied during the environmental review. They include increased truck traffic on Friant Road; impacts on geology and hydrology, air and water quality; noise pollution from explosives; damage to protected plants and animals; and land use compatibility issues.
That last one sounds innocuous, but it may also be the key to stopping this wrongheaded proposal in its tracks.
Fresno County, the city of Fresno and Madera County have all adopted the San Joaquin River Parkway concept as part of their general plans. In other words, they’re committed to the idea of a 22-mile “natural and recreational area” in the river floodplain between Friant and Highway 99.
Guess we’ll soon find out if those policies are worth the paper they’re printed on, or just an exercise in bureaucracy. Because nothing says nature and recreation like a blast mine along the river.
The environmental abuse has gone on long enough, Fresno. Leave the poor San Joaquin alone.
