Copyright © 2000 The Seattle Times Company
Editorials & Opinion :
Monday, March 13, 2000
Grouse Ridge: the mother of all neighborhood fights
James Vesely / Times Staff Columnist
The region's biggest, single land-use conundrum is still out there, waiting for someone to come along and undo the Gordian knot.
This particular knot is Grouse Ridge, a gravel pit and trucking nightmare for neighbors living nearby, a business opportunity and a majestic environmental windfall for its backers. So far, nobody has found a solution.
"I wish I knew what the problem is," said Homestead Sand and Gravel general manager Jason Fiorito. He operates the gravel pit just below Grouse Ridge, which would, he thinks, be the natural outlet for several hundred trucks a day to exit Grouse Ridge full of gravel, swing onto westbound I-90 and head toward construction sites. That would be the case if he weren't currently under a stop-work order by the county.
In its dimensions and conflicts, Grouse Ridge has become the Mother of All Neighborhood Battles. Here's the background: Cadman, an international mining company, wants to open a gravel pit on 317 acres of Weyerhaeuser property in East King County, east of North Bend. The site is closer to the Kittitas County line than it is to downtown Seattle, but that gravel - to be mined for the next 25 years - is destined for the building boom on the Eastside and throughout the metropolitan region.
In exchange for working the gravel lode, Weyerhaeuser agreed to eventually transfer over 2,000 acres of the Ridge within the umbrella of the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, adding to the mosaic of permanent greenway preservation on the I-90 corridor. The deal gets needed gravel into the Puget Sound economic boom, solves Weyerhaeuser's wish to get rid of land close to I-90 and helps complete the Greenway map that will become part of the remarkable vision of a green gateway to Seattle.
The wheels came off this train fairly early. Neighbors to the proposed gravel pit are objecting to 450 gravel trucks a day (that's 900 trips) using the I-90 ramp at Ken's Truck Town, Exit 34. Local gravel operator Fiorito wants to sit at the table and discuss his cut of the mining operation and maybe truck tolls for crossing his land to the pit. Cadman and Weyerhaeuser are like pieces of stone. They need the mine open 25 years, they need trucks moving the fastest route to I-90. Cadman presented a design that was ecologically magical in hiding the pit and a long rock conveyer from public view. Not enough, said the opponents. That's the way it has been going since 1998. An Environmental Impact Statement required by King County was due out last Thanksgiving. Now, maybe in June.
An April 1 deadline caused a rustle of rumors about a pending deal. In fact, the April 1 date was an opportunity for Weyerhaeuser to pull out of the agreement with Mountains to Sound and go about their legal right to start digging and hauling gravel. Last week, a company representative said Weyerhaeuser is willing to extend the deadline indefinitely to achieve a solution that combines mining with land preservation.
Cadman has its own problems. The company is barging gravel from British Columbia into Puget Sound - that's how much building materials are needed here. Each year in Washington, we use 14 tons of gravel a year per person on building.
Grouse Ridge needs a master bridge-builder, somebody who can satisfy the homeowners that a compromise is in their interests. The obvious solution is to move the trucks another stop up the hill to Exit 38 and cut Fiorito a piece of the pie. So far, the pit operators haven't found that an economically acceptable option.
Why should you care?
These are big stakes. Two-thousand, two-hundred and eighty acres of land will remain undeveloped and preserved if the deal is made. Yet, before peace returns to Grouse Ridge, another 25 years of mining will have passed and a treasure load of gravel will be turned into foundations, roads and highways. Jeff Martine, president of the Cascade Gateway Foundation, which is the neighborhood group fighting the gravel pit, sees the status quo continuing. King County Councilman David Irons Jr. sees "slow, continued talks, trying to build trust between the various sides."
The region's normally vocal environmental community has been largely silent on this issue. That's one reason Grouse Ridge has been hardly noticed as the months drag on. The Washington Environmental Council and other groups have not been publicly opposed, possibly out of deference to the Mountains to Sound Greenway. That has eliminated voices that could be on the side of the local homeowners, and make the pit a regional issue.
Someone with big ideas has to step in before the chess pieces will begin to move again. Fiorito says nobody's talking to him. Cadman is filling barges in Canada to haul down here, Weyerhaeuser just dropped its April 1 deadline and is ready to wait indefinitely for a deal. The neighborhood is waiting for the next shoe to drop. This is just a reminder to everyone that the region deserves an answer.
|
