Fresno County supervisors on Thursday afternoon approved a 300-foot-deep blast mine on the banks of the San Joaquin River.
The board greenlit the proposal despite an in-person recommendation from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to reject the mining project over its “catastrophic” risk to taxpayer’s billion-dollar investment in the San Joaquin River’s salmon run.
Three supervisors ultimately ignored the recommendation, a step an experienced state official couldn’t recall had happened any other time in her career. The 3-2 vote came after the key swing vote, Supervisor Garry Bredefeld, a San Joaquin River Conservancy board member, got CEMEX to agree to fund up to an extra $150,000 a year for the City of Fresno’s roads.
“It’s really disappointing to me that Supervisor Bredefeld, who expressed concerns about roads, then accepted this pittance CEMEX threw out as a negotiating tactic,” said Sharon Weaver, the executive director of the San Joaquin River Conservation Trust.
“You can barely pave a driveway for $150,000. What good is that going to do for roads?”
At Thursday’s meeting, Julie Vance, the regional manager for the CDFW, walked supervisors through the state’s objections to the blast mine one by one: the multi-national company’s encroachment onto publicly owned land, questionable water rights, endangered species and threats to the salmon run.
The salmon would be harmed by a mining breach during a flood, Vance said. On Thursday, Fresnoland reported that CEMEX left itself only 7 inches of headroom before the mine is breached. If the pit is flooded, a UC Berkeley professor warned, chemicals will likely get into the river and the salmon run could be ruined for good.
On Thursday, Vance confirmed the Berkeley professor’s worst fears.
“There’s potential for catastrophic and irreparable impacts to the San Joaquin River,” Vance told supervisors on Thursday.
She warned supervisors that once the riverbank is blasted, the risk can never be taken back.
“Once there is a pit of this size immediately adjacent to an active river channel, it will open up a liability for hundreds of years with no feasible means to undo the damage,” Vance said. “Given the resources at stake, I am asking you to deny the appeal and protect the substantial investment made in the San Joaquin River by the taxpayers of this state.”
However, no supervisor asked her any further questions about the “catastrophic” risks.
A decades-long quest
The vote is the latest chapter in CEMEX’s quest for a new mine to carry it through the next century. The company has been looking since the early 2000s.
The company originally wanted to mine Jesse Morrow Mountain, but Supervisors rejected the plan in the 2010s after it was found out the mountain was a Native American burial site.
Land goes to the highest bidder, and buying a new, expensive site would have added costs for CEMEX. Instead, the company made a risky gamble: a blast mine on the riverbank it has mined for generations, saving on land costs but increasing the risks to taxpayer’s investment.
CEMEX submitted its application in December 2019 and spent seven years getting its ducks in a row. By the time it reached the podium Thursday, the reports came to nearly 11,000 pages with appendices, CEMEX’s lawyer Pat Mitchell told the board.
Despite the risks to the salmon run Vance described, the county has no accountability measures in place to pay to undo “catastrophic impacts” to taxpayer investments if the pit is breached and widespread damage occurs.
In other words, the county has thrown caution to the wind, helping a multinational corporation in the process, said Sharon Weaver.
“A mine like this doesn’t go away. We’re left with the problems forever,” Weaver said.
Mitchell had told the board CEMEX would pay the county 5 cents a ton, about $150,000 a year. Late in the meeting, Bredefeld bargained with the company for another $150,000 a year in about a decade, and for tarps on its trucks.
With much more than potholes at risk, Weaver said the county negotiated poorly.
“The county should have asked for more in terms of assurances from CEMEX,” Weaver said.
“Overall, the county’s response to comments was extremely dismissive, even to public agencies. I’m stunned that they bought all of that. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Jobs versus the river
Public comment was capped at two hours, one hour for each side, with one minute per speaker. About 120 people spoke.
Ultimately, the county sided with CEMEX workers.
Many of them had worked at the pit for years, some for decades. Ricky Phillips, a third-generation miner, described with shaking hands how his father and grandfather had mined the same riverbank pit he works today, and said he wanted to hang up his boots there just as they had.
Workers said the state should have known it was building next to a mine before it put up its expensive salmon facility.
“If they’re still concerned about their fish, why would they build a hatchery there?” asked CEMEX worker Jesse Gonzalez.
The mining jobs were worth the risk, they said.
“CEMEX has provided my family stability,” said another worker, who has been with the company for 23 years. “It has also given my wife and I opportunity.”
On Thursday. on the other side of the room, a doctor came to the podium in his scrubs, and a group of singing grannies took their turn. Speakers who had spent entire careers building up the parkway talked about the cyclists and families who use it daily.
Residents argued that CEMEX’s corporate profits would come at the expense of not only the public’s investment in the San Joaquin River, but also their own household wealth. One called their neighborhood “ground zero” for how the project would impact their property values.
“Our home values will drop 30%. How many of you are going to compensate for our loss?” said one resident who lives within 200 feet of the project. “When we built our homes there, nobody said there would be deep blast mining.”
Supervisor Nathan Magsig, who represents the area, ultimately said that many of the residents’ concerns about the project had been addressed.
“There were a lot of concerns that this was going to be like a war zone, having to listen to that constantly,” he said of the blasting.
He said he supported industry in the area, pointing to environmental regulations he said had harmed the timber and oil refinery businesses in the past.
“We need to make sure we mitigate our impacts to the furthest extent possible,” he said.
Lame-duck politics?
The paint had barely dried on the vote, and one supervisor was already saying it was timed to avoid accountability.
“Let’s not tiptoe around the issue. There are times to be upfront. The reason this waited to come before this board is because of the election cycle,” said Supervisor Luis Chavez.
Three of the 5 supervisors on the board will be out of their seats by January.
“This project was ready long before. It was deliberately postponed in order to minimize the criticism and blowback.”
Supervisor Buddy Mendes agreed that the project was likely ready for a vote months ago.
“That item to the board should’ve come six months ago,” Mendes said over text.
However, he said the election had nothing to do with why it was held up.
“Luis doesn’t know what he’s talking about and I’ll leave this conversation at that.”
Chavez said he would keep a closer eye on gravel mines that come to the board in the future, but said Thursday’s vote already didn’t sit right with him.
“I think we missed an opportunity to do something for the community.”
