San Rafael Rock Quarry

SRRQ History

The San Rafael Rock Quarry (the “Quarry”) is a 750-acre open pit and strip mining operation located at 1000 Point San Pedro Road in Marin County, California, on a promontory that extends out into San Rafael Bay, and that features a prominent and wooded hill (South Hill).  The site is generally bounded by the Bay and Peacock Gap residential area, though its immediate borders include McNear’s Beach Park (a family-oriented recreational area) and a salt marsh wildlife area.  The Quarry site has seen quarrying operations of varying intensities since the 1920s.

The Quarry provides raw materials used for road construction, levee repair, marine construction and other industrial purposes.  Because it has bayside access, it transports materials both over the roads by truck, and over water by barge.

In 1982, the County of Marin re-zoned what is now the Quarry’s property from industrial (M-2) to commercial/residential (RMPC) in connection with the City of San Rafael’s 1980 Peacock Gap Neighborhood Plan.  Because quarrying operations are not compatible with a residential and light commercial zoning status, the 1982 rezoning caused the Quarry to become a legal “nonconforming” use, which invoked County ordinances prohibiting the Quarry from expanding or increasing the intensity of its use.

Also in 1982, the owners of the Quarry (the Basalt Rock Company) submitted an amended reclamation plan (the 1982 Reclamation Plan or ARP 1982) that proposed, among other things, to increase the Quarry’s pit depth to 200 feet below sea level and to cease mining operations by the early 1990s.  A reclamation plan is required by state mining law, and its purpose is to ensure that adverse environmental effects of mining are prevented or minimized, and that when mining is completed the site is adaptable for another use.  ARP 1982 was approved by the County without requiring an environmental impact report.

The Dutra Group purchased the Quarry property from the Basalt Rock Company in 1986, and soon sought to expand Quarry operations, including extending allowable pit depth to 300 feet, the strip mining of South Hill and the extension of the Quarry’s life for another 30 years (the predecessor owners had estimated that the Quarry’s useful life would end in 1992).  Dutra Group representatives claimed to be unaware of the property’s residential zoning status and its consequent nonconforming use.  Nonetheless, the Dutra Group took no action to rezone the property to a status consistent with its intentions.

As the Quarry steadily, and illegally, expanded operations into the mid 1990s, residents living nearby began complaining of the noise, dust and truck traffic resulting from Quarry operations.  The Quarry defended these activities by arguing that a California Supreme Court case, Hanson Brothers Enterprises, Inc. vs. Board of Supervisors of Nevada County, (1996) 12 Cal. 4th 533, allowed the Quarry to expand operations consistent with the predecessor owners’ expansion plans that existed before the site was rezoned.  Though the matter generated much discussion on the local political scene, and with the County bureaucracy, nothing much changed.  Even through an early 1997 Dutra Group bankruptcy, the Quarry continued to expand Quarry operations.  Many residents in the area had seen, heard and felt enough when a tremendous dynamite blast in the Quarry bowl in 1997 caused substantial damage to local homes resulting in claim settlements with many homeowners.

In 2000, the Marin County Planning Commission determined that the Quarry was not in compliance with the 1982 Reclamation Plan with respect to (among other things) pit depth and truck traffic, and directed the County staff to order the Quarry to comply with the plan.  It also noted that the operating restrictions contained in ARP 1982 were no longer adequate for the Quarry’s operations.  For another several years, the Quarry continued to operate well beyond the restrictions set forth in ARP 1982 with the County of Marin taking no action.

In 2001, a Grand Jury was convened to investigate the handling matters of Quarry operations by various Marin County government departments.  The Grand Jury made a number of findings, including that the County had failed to reassess the value of Quarry property based on the 1986 purchase price, failed to collect property taxes due on illegally constructed and remodeled dwellings on Quarry property and allowed the Quarry to expand operations illegally and beyond applicable zoning restrictions.

In 2002, the Point San Pedro Road Coalition (along with other neighbors living adjacent to the Quarry) filed a lawsuit against the Quarry alleging that the Quarry has been and is illegally operating beyond the scope of its nonconforming use and that the Quarry constitutes a nuisance.  A trial was held, and Judge John A. Sutro, Jr. issued an opinion on January 21, 2004. Judge Sutro made a number of findings, including generally the following:

1. Since 1982, the Quarry should have operated, but did not operate, consistent with the provisions of ARP 1982.

2. Since 1982, the Quarry should not have operated, but did operate, in a manner that had a significantly greater adverse impact on the neighborhood.

3. The Quarry neglected to file an amended reclamation plan to reflect its current operating plans, thus constituting a violation of California’s Surface Mining and Reclamation Act (SMARA), various Marin County ordinances and the Peacock Gap Neighborhood Plan, and an unlawful business activity.

4. Notwithstanding these violations, and given that the Quarry has operated illegally for so long without effective oversight by Marin County authorities, the Quarry should not be shut down without giving it and County authorities the opportunity to present an amended reclamation plan governing future operations.  

Judge Sutro then ordered that the Quarry be enjoined from conducting future mining operations on the property, but suspended the injunction to allow the Quarry to submit an amended reclamation plan to be considered by the County.  The order was amended soon thereafter to prescribe “interim operating conditions” that are to apply while the amended reclamation plan is being considered.  Those interim operating conditions are summarized on the Operating Conditions page.

In 2004, the Quarry submitted to the County a proposed amended reclamation plan (“ARP 2004”), setting forth how the Quarry property ought to be reclaimed for other uses after mining on the site is completed.

Environmental review is now underway on the Quarry’s ARP 2004 and a new operating permit.  Both ARP 2004 and the permit application are being reviewed together.  ARP 2004 proposes to mine the site for another 17 years to an ultimate depth of 400 feet, involving a massive and continuous earthmoving program that would dramatically and negatively impact the community and the environment by increasing noise and dust well above present levels.  Most of this would be conducted in the summer months when residents are engaged in outside recreational activities and when they keep windows open at night for ventilation.

The Dutra Group has proposed this earthmoving activity as an aspect of the updated reclamation plan.  If this activity were instead proposed as part of an updated Quarry operations plan, it would be refused as an impermissible expansion of the Quarry’s nonconforming use.  Therefore, the Dutra Group is proposing to expand its permit illegally by simply characterizing the movement of over 2 million tons of earth over 17 years as reclamation instead of operations.

ARP 2004 also proposes the same future reuse as ARP 1982, that is:

1. 350 residential units (including single family units in the Northeast and Northwest quadrants),
2. marina-front second story apartments and townhouses in both quadrants and on terraces on the south side of South Hill,
3. an administrative-professional complex in the Northwest quadrant and marina commercial space in the Southeast quadrant around the lagoon and on the bayfront,
4. space for retail, yacht sales, a hardware store, restaurants and a hotel, and possibly even a ferry terminal,
5. a marina lagoon constructed by flooding the bowl from the bay, and
6. a 600-slip marina and yacht club.

Approval of ARP 2004 does not approve the land uses described above.  The governing policy documents for land use on the site are the Marin Countywide general plan and the San Rafael general plan.  Unfortunately, neither the current draft of the new Marin Countywide Plan nor the recently approved San Rafael General Plan 2020 include tangible policy standards for redevelopment of the Quarry site.

The Coalition and its legal counsel contend that the permit application that is running parallel to consideration of ARP 2004 may result in what is effectively a business use permit that will regulate hours of operation, truck traffic on public roads, barge and loading operations, vibration from blasting and other things.  For its permit, the Quarry is seeking to adopt most of the interim operating conditions contained in Judge Sutro’s amended order as the Quarry’s permanent rules of operation.

In November 2005 the County began accepting comments on issues to be studied in the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the ARP 2004, and a January 2006 “scoping session” was held at St. Luke’s Church for this purpose.  The Coalition asked that an alternative be considered that would eliminate the need for an enormous amount of trucking, noise, dust and earth-moving, reduce the intensity of development in the proposed reuse plan and allow for immediate reclamation of the marsh areas and brick resource area.  The mining and quarrying permit is undergoing preliminary analysis by county EIR consultants now and a public comment period regarding environmental impacts associated with the operations plan may take place late in 2006.  It will take several months to prepare the interconnected EIRs and the completed documents will be subject to public hearings, possibly in the spring of 2007.  Final action on the dual applications by the County Board of Supervisors could take place in late 2007.

The conflict with the Quarry arises directly from its stewardship of the Dutra Group.  It has operated the Quarry on an assumption that local residents have no right to complain about its methods of operation because they should have known they were moving in next to a quarry.  However, given that the property had been rezoned to residential and light commercial, Judge Sutro found that Dutra has illegally increased the intensity and scope of Quarry operations, with resulting increases in dust, diesel, noise, traffic, visual, and blasting impacts, significantly and adversely impacting the neighborhood.

The process currently underway will sort out the conditions on which the Quarry will operate for the next two decades.  If residents of the Point San Pedro Road corridor, and particularly Peacock Gap, do not express to Marin County officials their experiences with past Quarry operations, the current interim conditions, and their concerns about future operations, County officials are far more likely to, in effect, legalize currently illegal Quarry operating conditions.  The County has failed to force the Quarry to operate within its legal limits in the past, and could cooperate with the Quarry’s desire to legitimize what has been past illegal operating conditions.

The Quarry should be required to live at least within the restrictions that applied when the Dutra Group acquired it in 1986, and with additional appropriate restrictions that recognize the residential growth in the neighborhood. Voice your concerns and complaints to Marin County using the instructions on the Operating Conditions page. Also, please submit any comments to the SRRQ Committee using the form provided on the Committee page.