Thelen Sand and Gravel White Paper on the Issues:
Thelen is requesting a 450
acre sand and gravel mine in
Reality is different than the proposal they are presenting. For instance, Thelen is avoiding the question of going down below the water table line (30 feet) in their initial statements by saying they have not yet tested any deeper than 20 feet. Thus, they talk with residents about going 20 feet and not disturbing the water line. What they do NOT tell people, however, is that the sand and gravel goes down at least 100 feet and once they get their zoning change and mining permit, they can easily amend it to get all the gravel that is there. Thus, they imply one thing, but wind up getting something dramatically different through “incremental” amendments over time.
Going below the water table impacts wells and drinking water: It is of course easier to get a permit initially to change the zone if someone can show they are not impacting the water table. But once the mine is in, a simple amendment process can bring about more mining than originally requested. Thus, they might get the initial proposal accepted on the basis that wells would not be affected, but since they are not seeking a zoning change later, just a “depth” amendment, they will not have the same requirements and burden of proof and notice provisions potentially, and thus, can get in two steps what they would have difficulty getting in one. We need to evaluate their proposal based on the ULTIMATE picture they intend to achieve.
It should be noted that they are not making any guarantees about the water levels, the impacts on area wells, or the potential for pollution. When the Highway KD pit was put in some decades ago, the surrounding homeowners wound up losing their wells and had to pay thousands of dollars to drill deeper to re-establish their wells. This meant that the private homeowners surrounding this property had to bear the costs associated with this pit, and there is nothing in the Thelen proposal to address the “what if” contingencies that are known and likely outcomes of a mining operation across the street from residential communities.
They also do not indicate how much water they will be drawing themselves for their mining operations. We know they use water to try to tamp down some of the dust (quite unsuccessfully however), and they would become a major industrial user of the aquifer water that serves local residential drinking water needs.
Give them an inch,
they take a mile: By restricting
their current proposal to just the land East of KD, Thelen
reduces the number of immediately impacted neighbors. However, Thelen
owns lots of other land in
It is useful to look at how they have systematically
expanded in just this way in
Adding Processing
Activities: The initial proposal
says they will not being moving their processing to the Randall site, but
moving the sand and gravel down to the
Adding Truck
Traffic: The initial proposal says that
they will not be running trucks nor creating traffic, but will use conveyors to
move the sand and gravel to
Reclamation: In all the time that Thelen has been mining in Fox Lake/Spring Grove, they have never satisfactorily reclaimed any land to the standards they are implying here. In fact, they have left big, ugly scars on the earth and simply added a little topsoil and planted corn in the pits. It is much less expensive for them to scar the earth than to do the extensive reclamation that they imply. They have had decades of time to prove themselves in Illinois to be good neighbors on the basis of renewing the land and creating a beautiful environment afterwards but they have never done it. If they are not good neighbors to the existing communities, what makes us think they will be good neighbors in our community? Their track record is the opposite.
Property Values: While they indicate that property values
will not be affected, every realtor we have spoken with indicates that property
values tend to be affected just by the PROPOSAL of a mine, and are further
affected with the reality of a mine immediately across the street from
residential communities. There are no
guarantees in their proposal to protect the property owners; although they talk
privately about being willing to put some such proposal in place. They have certainly failed to do this in
Not only does it reduce property values and the appreciation of property values, but it makes it harder to sell or move, as well as puts mortgages that are pegged to the valuation of the home at risk when property values suddenly decline below the value of the mortgage.
The home is for most people their single largest investment and represents their retirement fund as well. Thus, any negative impact whatsoever on either base property value, the ability to sell in a seller’s market, or the rate of appreciation over time, directly harms the ability of people to maintain ownership of their homes, fund their children’s education, or have a financially secure retirement and an estate to pass on to their children.
Conveyor issues: They propose the conveyors initially both to reduce the implication of heavy truck traffic, and to somehow lead us to believe that this is a benefit to the community. However, gravel conveyors are noisy, create dust and air pollution, and create safety hazards for the entire route of several miles. This means that many more people will be impacted along the route.
Noise Issues: They indicate in their own information flyer that the sound will be much like other “agricultural machinery”. Of course right now we hear agricultural machinery a few days a year during planting and harvesting, but with the mine, we will hear it every day of the week throughout the year. This is a major qualitative and quantitative difference in noise levels. Higher ambient noise levels are known to increase stress, decrease immune system response and thereby harm general health and well being. For a community that above all values its peace and quiet and rural ambience, it is absolutely destructive.
Of course, once they move processing and truck traffic here under their “incremental” steps over time, the noise levels go up even further and become that much more pervasive.
Time of operation
issues: At
How Long Will They Be
Mining: According to their own
statements, they are admitting 15 years, which for the local neighborhood of
course is much of a lifetime. However,
if we look at the example of Fox Lake/Spring Grove, we see that here also it is
not the reality. What they have done
across the border is only refer to the time they will do a SPECIFIC location or
type of operation. So that each time
they extend to more land, or add processing, the time frame simply
expands. That is why we have not seen
any real reclamation of any land in
Listen Carefully and you will hear them change their tune: On September 9, 2004 in Randall, which was being recorded by the Town clerk, Steve Thelen indicated that they had to have the mine in Randall because they had only 5 years of gravel left in Fox Lake/Spring Grove and they had absolutely no other sources of sand or gravel they either owned, were looking at or were trying or had acquired. However, a week later they were in Spring Grove attempting to add an 80 acre parcel to their existing land and permits, and that application was long in place when he made what then turns out to be extremely misleading statements to the citizens of Randall. It should also be noted that he still has hundreds of unmined acres contiguous to his Fox Lake/Spring Grove facility which promises him DECADES of sand and gravel in that facility without needing to come here and destroy our community, even without his adding the 80 acres he is fighting to add in Spring Grove. So the entire premise from which he starts to tell us that to save his business he must destroy our community is itself misleading and false.
Similarly during his informational meeting at the
All their “informational sessions” only talk about the first 20 feet of gravel, with a proviso that they have “not yet tested anything more”. This is a convenient way to avoid talking about the impact on the water table, and we hear board members talking about this to reassure us that our wells will not be affected. But we all know that they will go as deep as the gravel vein, which is 100 feet or more in this area. Watch them change their story in real time as things move forward!!!
A number of long-time residents of the community were told directly by Vern Thelen, the founder of the company that they were not buying this property for mining, but to preserve the open space and the agricultural A-1 status of the land “forever”. It is on this basis that a strong and vibrant residential community has built up in this area in the meantime. Clearly, they are singing a different tune now, as they want to destroy the open space, overturn the A-1 status and put in a mine.
In fact, one resident who bought a house from the Thelen’s less than 2 years ago was specifically inquiring about the risks to the peace and quiet of the community and was told by the Thelen’s that the threat of the new High School going on the corner of KD and F was being avoided, so they would have a peaceful environment. They did not mention their own intentions to start mining operations essentially in their backyard. But we know now that they have been secretly planning this and acquiring land for years, despite very clear assurances they have given their neighbors about their intentions.
They refuse to limit themselves to the current proposal in any legal and formal way, and if we look at their history we can see that they plan to expand, extend and increase their activities in our community if we let them in the door, far beyond the assertions they are making today to lull us to sleep and get the town board and the county zoning to approve their application on the basis of an allegedly low impact nature of what they are planning.
A-1 is a contract with the State, the Nation and the Community: A-1 zoning has been set up to preserve the food supplying land of the nation which otherwise would disappear to development and eventually create a serious food shortage in this country. This zoning gets special preferential low tax rates and the Thelen’s bought this land knowing it was A-1 (and asserting to their neighbors that they intended to keep it that way “forever”). A-1 should therefore not be overturned lightly or on a whim. A landowner who buys A-1 knows that it is A-1 and there is no other permitted use other than agriculture on that land. The land cost, the property taxes all are based on that use.
On the other hand, residents who move into or build in a local community have a right to rely on the consistency of the zoning to ensure that they are getting the values they are paying for. In this case, overwhelmingly the local residents moved to this area to have peace, quiet, open space, low density residential and rural environment. This has led to ever increasing housing and land prices for these residents, with the ever higher mortgages and mortgage interest payments, and of course, ever increasing assessments by the government and ever higher property taxes. The local residents have in fact paid a lot of money to live in a community with these values and they have a right to continuity and an expectation that the land adjacent to them will not suddenly turn into industrial property and be the site of open pit mining and all it implies!
EPA Issues: It is interesting to note that the Thelen company’s listing with the EPA indicates that the EPA does not know the current “compliance status” of Thelen as to EPA regulations and the last noted reporting was in the year 2000 for their Antioch/Fox Lake/Spring Grove facility. The fact that this operation has grown enormously and is not being regularly tested means that they are the site of UNCONTROLLED AIR POLLUTION emissions both for ambient dust (including PM10, PM25 and silica) and diesel pollution, and since the general public generally does not know how to get the government to monitor these things (and assumes that they are being properly and regularly monitored) they just suffer under this pollution.
A trip down to Highway 173 and Wilmot Road on just about any work day, but particularly when there is a breeze of 10-15 miles per hour or more (a very frequent occurrence in our area, as we are right near “The Windy City”) will exhibit a dust haze that is very difficult to see or drive through! We can see as much as 24 inches of accumulated sand dust along the sides of the road showing how much airborne dust is escaping the pit. Many residents report losing windshields to flying gravel.
Even when the EPA does require reporting, in many cases it is one random day per year, or even worse, facility operator supplied reports from a day of their own choosing! Thus, there is very little if any actual or real control on emissions from the operation.
Wetlands Issues: We learned from the geologist representing Thelen that part of the land contains wetlands and surface water. Others have noted that there are plants in this area that are rare or endangered. Surface water also supports the large number of migratory birds that flock through our area. Animals also make their home in these wetland areas and that is why wetlands are specially protected under the law. The existence of surface water also creates the very real likelihood of pollution of the groundwater. However, we have not heard anything from the Thelen’s about the impact on the wetlands and surface water.
Vibration: Sand and gravel mining is permitted to use heavy equipment to mine the gravel, as well as blasting if needed. In addition, the processing equipment, the conveying equipment and of course heavy truck traffic in and out all create vibration as well. Vibration can cause homes to settle, walls and floors to crack and damages to occur in nearby residences that further increases the burdens on the neighbors.
La Salette Shrine is negatively impacted: The La Salette shrine is a sacred and respected location with places for quiet walking, contemplation and prayer. This shrine is located immediately across the street from the proposed sand and gravel mine. This shrine will have its peace and quiet and positive values of its location totally destroyed by having a heavy industrial operation suddenly dropped in across the street.
Health Issues: There are of course several aspects of health concerns. One is for people who have existing health concerns that will be further harmed by even small incremental changes in the dust levels, the pollution levels or the noise or vibration issues. I spoke with one neighbor the other day who has a disease of the nervous system who is in constant pain already. Noise and vibration set off excruciating pain for this person and even the slightest increase in noise and vibration in his environment will make his home and community unlivable for him. Others have children with asthma, which is already a growing concern throughout the area. A few years ago the local schools did a survey on asthma and clearly this is something we hear about frequently in the area. Increasing ambient dust in the area will make it impossible for these children to breathe and live any kind of near normal life.
If we look at the extent of the unregulated and uncontrolled dust being created by the Fox Lake/Spring Grove facility, it is clear that we also have to look at the negative impacts, not just on those who live here who are already having health concerns, but also on those of us who are healthy now, but who will be negatively impacted by the increased air pollution, dust pollution, ambient noise levels and loss of peace and quiet in our homes where we refresh and recuperate ourselves from the stresses of everyday life. There is a very strong body of scientific evidence on the harmful effect of PM10, PM25, ambient dust, noise pollution and silica dust on health and well being. Some of the problems caused by these irritants and pollution include asthma, emphysema, respiratory illnesses, lost days of school or work due to respiratory problems, silicosis, stress related illnesses, and other lower respiratory tract problems such as bronchitis, pneumonia etc.
The studies show that children and the elderly are the most impacted by the effects of PM10 and PM25 air pollution and ambient dust levels, and there are a large number of children and elderly in the surrounding communities. Studies also show that lung capacity development is impaired in children subject to such pollution, and even when they are later moved away from the pollution source, the lost capacity is never regained. We are putting our most vulnerable citizens at high risk due to this mining proposal.
Ambient Dust Impacts our Homes and Our Lives: An increased level of ambient dust in the air means that it gets not only into our lungs and our bodies, but also into our homes. It gets into our carpets. It gets on our furniture. It gets into the drapes. This causes increased wear and tear on our homes and furnishings, causing homeowners added expense over time for faster replacement of carpets, drapes, etc. It also increases dramatically the maintenance needed to keep a house clean. For people with ever busier lives, and two-income families who are also trying to take care of children and find time to relax, this means that they will have to spend much more time and energy cleaning their homes to control the ambient dust.
Further they indicate that “as part of our statewide transportation network, even a local airport such as the one at Westosha plays a critical role in fostering business growth and economic development.”
“The smaller, local airports also provide facilities for emergency medical flights, law enforcement, agricultural spraying, pilot training, recreational flying and other important community services.”
“The FAA and the State of
They go on to indicate other important reasons to keep this airport open and point out that the 22,000 flights that use this airport annually would have to be shifted elsewhere. They strongly urge a “cost/benefit” analysis taking all these factors into account before any decision to close this airport is entertained.
Sand and Gravel goes
primarily outside the community: The
proposed mine will take the sand and gravel so that the Thelen
company can profit by selling it to their primary
customers, which are located in
Zoning Regulations discourage sand and gravel mining next to residential communities. The entire principle of zoning is that one landowner does not have the right to develop their property at the expense of the rights of the neighboring property owners to having their property values and community left intact. To the extent that mining conflicts with residential uses, and impacts residential values, it should not be permitted. Some people mistakenly believe that anyone can do “anything they want” with land they own. But we all know that this is not true and the entire zoning ordinances and zoning change processes are built to PROTECT neighbors from noxious, noisy, polluting activities destroying their values without recourse. In this case, so many homeowners are affected because the mine is of an extraordinarily large size, has contiguous land to “expand” into later, and is surrounded virtually on all sides by residential communities. It is an example of the wrong activity, in the wrong place, under the wrong circumstances, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons.
Thelen Sand and Gravel is a private company out for its own profits, not a community service: Make no mistake about it, this is not a national defense or public safety organization seeking to develop a facility for the general public need for which this community should be asked to step up and make sacrifices. Rather it is a private, for profit business that wants to enrich itself by making a change in a long-term zoning and land use in the community, at the expense of dozens, perhaps hundreds of other landowners who have rights to the enjoyment of their property and property values under the law. This is directly contrary to the entire principle of appropriate zoning which discourages putting vastly divergent types of uses contiguous to one another for just this reason.
If we used some common sense we would understand that there
has to be some control to ensure the health, safety and enjoyment of property
and its values for the community as a whole against individual property owners
coming in and doing things that harm these values. For instance, if an adult bookstore and
topless bar wanted to locate itself on a property owned by them directly across
the street from
Where different zones join one another, the intent of the zoning ordinances is clearly stated to be to minimize the potential for conflict and the destruction of one group’s property values and enjoyment in favor of another property owner. Thus, dramatically conflicting uses such as sand and gravel mines in residential areas is contrary to the intent of the zoning laws and principles.
No private business should be able to, by the use of their political clout and monetary strength be able to overturn the basic principles of fairness, the basic intent of zoning ordinances or the basic rights of their neighbors to further enrich themselves. It is the responsibility of our elected and appointed officials to protect us from this type of action.
Mining in this community is contrary to the principles of Smart Growth: The entire purpose of the Smart Growth law is to avoid creating a patchwork of conflicting uses in communities throughout the State. The basic underlying principles of equity in applying the zoning ordinances are the foundation of the idea of Smart Growth, simply applied now into the future to ensure that future conflicts are avoided. As such, uses that would be discouraged today will be discouraged tomorrow when we look at the development into the future planned for an area. The Smart Growth plan for Randall was drafted with the very clear wishes of the residents in mind, that indicated by over 90% of the responses tallied that they wanted to preserve the over-riding value of the rural setting, low density residential nature of the community with its open space, peace, quiet and healthful environment. Randall is of course evolving more and more into a bedroom community, and over time, we have seen a slow but steady increase in residences and a slow but steady decline of farms.
Nothing in this picture indicates however that we should suddenly take on a heavy industrial mining function in this community, and as noted above, the negative consequences are far reaching and permanent.
Therefore, the Smart Growth plan should avoid enshrining the activity of open pit sand and gravel mining into this area and reject the Thelen application to do so.
Gravel is the Pits
Wilmot, WI 53192
USA
262 877 9396
email: info@gravelisthepits.com