A discussion at the February 12 county board meeting about purchasing a piece of property in order to have better access to a county owned gravel pit turned into a discussion of whether the pit should be mined at all. Neighboring property owners expressed concerns about the impact on water quality below the pit.
The county has been mining a 40-acre parcel of land just south and west of the Maple Hill Cemetery for the last 30 years. County Highway Department personnel have been accessing the pit by turning off the Gunflint Trail and driving up Maple Hill Drive, past the Maple Hill Church and through the cemetery, where they turn into the northwest corner of the pit, which is on a hill.
County Highway Engineer David Betts requested permission from the board to enter negotiations to purchase a 10-acre parcel leading from Maple Hill Drive into the southeast corner of the property, where the elevation is lowest.
The pit is rich in clay, which is used as a binder to prevent loose gravel on gravel roads. Engineer Betts said it is the only clay pit the county owns. Buying clay from other sources would cost $1.50/yard.
After restoration of 1.061 acres that will be completed next summer, the total acreage that is open will be less than 2.9 acres. The Highway Department closes up areas as they open new ones.
The pit is being mined about 15 working days a year and is expected to last many years or even many decades if only the clay is harvested.
In a separate interview, Cook County Highway Engineer David Betts said that his department has several reasons for wanting a different access to the property. He tries to avoid bringing trucks and heavy equipment through areas with churches and cemeteries where they could interfere with community events. The loaded trucks leaving the pit are extremely heavy and require downshifting—which creates noise—in order to safely navigate down the hill. Maple Hill Drive is narrow and not well built for heavy loads. Purchasing the property adjacent to the southeast corner of the pit would allow trucks and equipment to travel along a road built for hauling. The new road would lead trucks to the area that is being actively mined and prevent them from having to navigate down a grade that is currently as steep as 20 degrees in some places.
“This solves a lot of problems,” Betts said regarding the possibility of purchasing land to create a better access to the pit. “I think it’s a win-win for everybody in the area.” He said the new parcel would only be used for access and would not be mined.
Several neighboring property owners spoke up at the meeting, saying the pit has decreased the quality of water in the water table and muddied a stream that runs down the hillside.
William “Husky” Kloster said a couple of test holes that had been dug showed the water table only 15-20 feet from the surface. He also expressed concern that the proposed road would disturb the creek. “My main concern is the well water for the surrounding properties,” he said.
A letter to the board from Jeff Nemitz said, “This pit is located on a fairly steep slope with an un-named spring-fed creek running west along the southern boundary. …Historically (last 20 years) this creek has had a moderate amount of sediment during heavy rains and spring runoff, but late last summer I noticed a marked increase in the sediment load during a heavy rain. …When the Highway Department was under previous management, the lower end of the mining area had a fairly large berm to contain runoff from the mining area. This can be confirmed by aerial photos available on the Cook County Interactive Web Map (2009). More recent photos (2012) from the same source show that some of this berm has been removed, and I have personally seen that a slot was cut (probably with a backhoe) through the berm, with no sediment barrier, that potentially can drain the entire mining area into the lowland that the creek runs through. The lowland area below the mining operation that the creek runs through now contains a large amount of sediment.
“…I am not opposed to mining at this location, as long as the proper efforts are taken by the mining entity to ensure that sediment runoff is minimized, as is required in any operation of this sort,” Nemitz wrote.
Nemitz contacted the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which then directed the Cook County Highway Department to submit a plan of action, which the Engineer Betts is now preparing. The department started fixing the erosion-control berm last summer and plans to finish this summer.
Regarding the berm, Betts said, “It got breached and it shouldn’t have gotten breached.” He later told the News-Herald, “We should always try to set a good example.” He said he believes the county should follow regulations like everyone else, “whether it’s ditches or gravel pits.”
Commissioner Heidi Doo-Kirk, who lives on Maple Hill Drive, said the neighbors she spoke with were split about 50-50 on whether the county should pursue the land purchase.
Betts estimated that purchasing the property and building a road on it would cost $60,000-100,000. “I wouldn’t be spending the money or effort on this if I thought this was a dead pit,” he said.
The board passed a motion authorizing Bets to negotiate the purchase of the property and instructing him to come back to them with more information regarding environmental issues, effects on neighboring properties, and other issues related to extracting material from the pit. The board would need to approve the purchase.
Parcel removed from land exchange
Due to objections from area property owners, a parcel of land with Junco Creek running through it just north of Devil Track Road was removed from the list of U.S. Forest Service properties the county is interested in exchanging for county land in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The county was interested in the parcel because of its ready access to other gravel-rich parcels being considered for the exchange.
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