Duarte Tries to Crush Vulcan, Fails in Court

By Michelle R. Brown

The City of Duarte’s lawsuit, originally filed in August 2010 against The City of Azusa regarding Azusa’s decision to allow Vulcan Materials to expand their mining operation on 80 acres of land was denied by Judge Thomas I. McKnew on Monday, May 9.
“The City is extremely disappointed that the numerous valid points raised in our lawsuit were ultimately rejected at the lower court level,” stated City Manager Darrell George in a press release. “Duarte continues to have serious concerns over substantial health and environmental impacts this project will have on both our residents as well as those of the entire San Gabriel Valley.
In the Statement of Decision, which explained the denial of the case, Judge Mcknew found no support for Duarte’s claim that in terms of air quality, mining operations are essentially “construction/demolition projects” and therefore construction thresholds should be imposed instead of operational thresholds.
Also in the Statement, “The lead agency selected mass daily emission thresholds because federal and state air quality standards are given in terms of 24 hour periods and because short term exposure is what determines whether there is a risk to human health.” This means that McKnew ruled that Azusa took proper measures to ensure air quality safety before deciding to allow the expansion. The increase in annual emissions was also analyzed and deemed less than significant, a vote of safe.
At Duarte City Council on Tuesday May 10, resident of 29 years Allen Field begged the mayor and council members to not pursue an appeal. $500,000 has been spent on the project already, and another $200k could be spent on appeals, according to Field, who believes that the money should be put back into the already small budget, and used to restore other community programs.
In a Tuesday May 2 budget workshop, it was decided that numerous cutbacks would be made, including eliminating one Special Assistant Deputy Police Officer, eliminating supervision at Encanto Park, eliminating trail maintenance, reducing funding for Duarte Unified School District, and eliminating the Moonlight Basketball program.

It was also decided at this workshop, that an additional $15,000 would be spent on a 2013 Rose Float, though Duarte opted not to fund the float in 2012.
The City of Duarte has at least 60 days to determine if it will file an appeal with the State Appeals Court. The City of Azusa stands to make upwards of $65 million on the mining project, which hopes to extract 105.6 million tons of aggregate between now and 2038. The aggregate that Vulcan produces are used in almost all forms of construction projects, particularly concretes for road repair.

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