May, 2003 Cadman EIS (Transportation, Chapter 3.9): Expansion of their Gold Bar plant

(Interestingly, we could not locate this EIS online at Cadman's website. For a company purporting to sport such strong "community support," it would seem justified that they would wish to share information with the "audience" most negatively affected by this proposal -- anyone who uses U. S. Highway 2.)

G.R.I.T. Home

MITIGATION: Cadman will pay only $90,000 to help "mitigate" the negative effects of Hwy. 2. There will be 314 gravel trucks rolling along Route 2 per day as a result of this plant expansion. For those uninitiated in costs for road improvements -- not to mention personal man-hours stuck in traffic, broken windshields and safety factors -- $90,000 would barely pay for a survey for road improvements, much less the various studies, consultants' fees and the actual improvements themselves.)

How much a part of the Sultan community is Cadman? (Our thoughts, based on a Shindig, 2003 banner)

A trip to Granite Falls, to see how that city has fared from its gravel benefits

GRIT"s Gravel page

G.R.I.T. Traffic Impact page (access Hwy. 2 traffic counts)

Gravel "Ad" during Shindig

The Sky Valley Chamber of Commerce made the decision to accept Cadman's "Sponsorship" of Shindig 2003. How cheaply do we sell our way of life down the river? Or, in this case, down Highway 2? After the economic downturn is over, the gravel trucks will still be here, thundering through Sultan. Oh, and by the way, I wonder if that $1,500 -- or any amount of $$$ -- will compensate Valley residents for Cadman's "sponsorhip" of another 314 gravel trucks per day thundering along on Rt. 2. Just go to Granite Falls and ask them.

Note: Neither the SR 2/5th Street nor the SR2/Sultan Basin Road signalization improvements were mentioned in Cadman's EIS. The only signalized Sultan intersection that was considered for impacts was the light at SR 2/Old Owen Road/Fern Bluff Rd. The study does, however, make the valid assessment that wherever signalization occurs, blockages and slow-downs are the inevitable result.

DOCUMENTS AND INFO:

MAY, 2003 Environmental Impact Statement Chapter 3.9, Transportation

  • Chapter 3.9, EIS Text (1.1 mb): Note: This is a condensed version of the more comprehensive Heffron Transportation Study performed on this site. If you're going to read one of the two, we would recommend the Heffron Analysis.)
  • Heffron Transportation, Inc. Traffic Analysis for Chapter 3.9 in the EIS (This is a comprehensive document; most of the tables & figures contained in the EIS text file shown above are repeated here.)
    • Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION (274 kb Acrobat)
    • Chapter 2: AFFECTED ENVIRONMENT (364 kb Acrobat)- discusses the impacted roadway network, traffic volumes, speeds, safety, and transit, pedestrian and bicycle travel.
    • Chapter 3: IMPACTS OF THE PROPOSED ACTION (900 kb Acrobat) - Includes truck trip generation, trip distribution and assignment of trips, truck operational characertistics [braking times, etc.], and generally the impacts of this proposed enlargement of Cadman's existing plant.
    • Chapters 4 & 5: IMPACT OF THE ALTERNATIVES & MITIGATION (238 kb Acrobat)

Thumbnail of Cadman Project:

  • Location: Approx. 3 miles east of Gold Bar, near Reiter Road along U. S. Highway 2
  • Mining Acreage expansion: 230 acres
  • Mining extraction total estimate: 1.5 million tons annually; total removal 37.5 million tons
  • Expected monthly new sales at plant: ranges between a low in December of approx. 75,000 tons to a high in August of 160,000 tons; average month = 8.3% of annual sales.
  • "Life" of project: 2005 through 2030
  • Alternatives being proposed: Expansion as proposed (Alt. #1), Partial rail transport (Alt. #2), and No Action (Alt. #3)
  • Hours of Operation: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
  • Total additional Vehicular trips to U. S. Highway 2: 470
    • Trucks: 314
    • "Other" vehicles: 156
  • Worst slowdown/intersection/chokepoint along distribution corridor: Old Owen Road/Fern Bluff/U.S. Hwy. 2 in Sultan (Red Apple)
  • Total Mitigation fees: $89,240
  • Total # new jobs/employees added: 50 (truck drivers24, plant employees, 26)
  • Total distribution of truck trips: All westward movements through Gold Bar and Sultan to Main Street/Old Owen Road in Monroe, except for 3% eastbound.
  • Transportation growth factor: A 1.5% annual factor was applied to 2030 future traffic volume estimates for Route 2. That seems just a tad low, considering OFM's (Washington State's Office of Financial Management) projected population issuance for Snohomish County is between 6%-11% growth, and the Route 2 corridor is one of the fastest-growth areas in the County.
  • Impacts to U. S. Highway 2: As stated in Cadman's EIS, there will be no "significant unavoidable adverse impact" to Highway 2 from this plant expansion. But the 1998 James W. MacIsaac study 5 1/2 years ago determined that if CSR had selected Sultan as a gravel extraction site (rather than Granite Falls), such a facility would definitely have resulted in a Significant unavoidable adverse impact to Hwy. 2. Granted Mr. MacIsaac's conclusion was based on a total of 564 gravel trucks on Highway 2 rather than only 314, but to state there will be NO ADVERSE IMPACTS to Route 2? That does not fit with reality.

Bullet Points of Quotes Related to project, concerning impacts to Sultan residents:

  • "As [the] project [gravel extraction site] traffic travels further west on Highway 2 into Monroe, the project traffic as a percentage of the total traffic will become less and less. As this happens, the potential impact of the project on traffic operations will also be less. Therefore, the potential increase in delay at the signalized intersection in Sultan represents the maximum increase in delay that might be experienced elsewhere in the corridor." [Note: This EIS fails to consider slowdown and delay impacts from other future signalizations on Highway 2 in Sultan, located at 5th Street and Sultan Basin Road.]
  • "The analysis determined that the Highway 2/Old Owen Road/Fern Bluff Road intersection [in Sultan] would operate at LOS [Level of Service] "C" or better in 2005 for all peak hour conditions, and in 2030 during the weekday peak hour. If traffic volumes continue to grow at 1.5% per year [an arguable assumption made earlier in the study of the growth rate], traffic operations could fail on weekend days without or with the proposed mine. This degradation in level of service reflects peak season conditions on Highway 2. Because the project is expected to add only a small increase in delay at this intersection for all peak hour conditions, and because the poor level of service would occur only occasionally and far into the future, no mitigation is suggested for this intersection." (Heffron Study, page 37)
  • "Because of the increased congestion on Sundays, it is likely that the project proponent would schedule around times when traffic conditions on Highway 2 are severe to prevent truck drivers from sitting in traffic. Because the poor level of service would occur only occasionally, and would occur far into the future, no mitigation would be needed...." (Heffron study, page 34)
  • No mitigation would be required for Hwy. 2/Old Owen/Fern Bluff intersection in Sultan "...as the background traffic volumes increase and the percentage of traffic attributable to the project decreases." (Heffron Study, page 43)
  • "Because of the project's large market area, and the number of project trips generated per hour, the proposed mine is not expected to add more than three peak hour trips to any county roadway." (Chapter 3.9, EIS text, page 3.9-18) [G.R.I.T. Note: this is a misleading and disingenuous statement. Although specifically true, Hwy. 2 is a U.S./State highway, and, thus, has been excluded from that statement. In fact, all but 3% of the truck trips generated by the Gold Bar plant will be forced to travel on Highway 2 before it reaches its first distribution point, which is Monroe.]