Controversial sand mining operation set to close
The last coastal sand mine in the United States, a Monterey Bay plant that scientists say has caused significant erosion of beaches in the area, will close in three years under a settlement agreement announced Tuesday with California officials.
The facility, known as the CEMEX Lapis plant, has been in operation since 1906 and is located between Marina and Moss Landing. With smokestacks, conveyor belts and dredges, it produces an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 cubic yards of sand a year — enough to fill up to 30,000 dump trucks. The sand sells for about $4.70 a bag for a variety of uses from sand blasting to golf course sand traps to lining utility trenches.
It has operated for years with
Closing Dec. 31, 2020
out permits from the state, claiming that its operations predate state laws such as the 1976 Coastal Act.
Last month, however, the State Lands Commission — an agency that regulates offshore oil drilling in state waters and submerged tidal lands — sent a letter to officials of the Mexican based company demanding that the company obtain a lease from the commission and begin paying royalties or shut down. The company already was under investigation from the California Coastal Commission and was facing years of protracted litigation and potential fines.
Under Tuesday’s settlement, the company will be allowed to continue mining 177,000 cubic yards a year of sand for the next three years but then must shut down entirely by Dec. 31, 2020.
The company must also restore the 400-acre site where it operates to more natural conditions and offer its land for sale with a deed restriction that would prohibit future development and allow public access. The expectation is that the land would be purchased by a conservation group and opened to the public.
The settlement was signed by the company, the coastal commission and the State Lands Commission, along with the city of Marina.
“The terms offer a much faster resolution and termination of the beach-dredging operations than the alternative of protracted litigation and court hearings with uncertain outcomes,” said Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a member of the State Lands Commission, who called the news “a good result for Monterey County’s environment and economy.”
CEMEX spokesman Walker Robinson said the company, based in Houston, was following the law and disputed that the plant, which employs 20 workers, was causing major erosion.
“Analysis to date confirms the causes of erosion along Monterey Bay are numerous and complex,” he said. “Claims that attribute erosion to the Lapis operation oversimplify the issue.”
He said the company has worked with state agencies to find an agreement “that is mutually acceptable and which respects the interests of our employees, the community and other stakeholders.”
“To that end,” he added, “CEMEX has agreed to phase out the Lapis sand plant operation over the coming years.”
The settlement is expected to be approved July 13 by a vote of the coastal commission and in August by the board of the State Lands Commission.
“We have spent countless hours in confidential talks forging a solution to stop the truly regrettable loss of sand and to protect the beaches in the Monterey Bay,” said the coastal commission’s chief of enforcement, Lisa Haage. “We are gratified that we have been able to reach a proposed solution here with Cemex, one that will truly benefit the public.”
Scientists have said that the company has taken so much sand off the shoreline that it has caused significant erosion nearby.
Gary Griggs, director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC-Santa Cruz and one of the state’s experts on California coastal erosion, has said that areas south of the sand plant, along the site of the former Fort Ord military base and down to the Monterey Tides Hotel in Monterey, are eroding at roughly 3 to 6 feet a year. Stilwell Hall, the former World War II-era officer’s club at Fort Ord, had to be demolished in 2003 when cliff erosion threatened to send it crashing into the ocean.
Without the sand plant, Griggs said, the coast in that area would erode by roughly 1-2 feet a year, if not less, based on regular tidal action.
5 others have closed
In decades past, there were six major sand mining plants along the shores of Monterey Bay. The companies were closed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the Reagan and Bush administrations between 1986 and 1990 after the agency enforced prohibitions on sand mining in the surf.
The Lapis mine remained open, however, because it had shifted to a method in which it pumps sand from a lagoon on the back of the beach in an area where it owns 400 acres. Last year the coastal commission said it would require permits for that dredging, but CEMEX contended that its operations predate the 1976 Coastal Act.
The State Lands Commission noted in a letter last month to CEMEX that the company’s predecessor, Pacific Cement and Aggregates, had a 5-year state lease and paid royalties. The commission’s executive officer, Jennifer Lucchesi, wrote that sand in the lagoon comes in with the tides and so is subject to the agency’s jurisdiction. If CEMEX did not apply for a state lease, conduct environmental studies and pay royalties, it could face civil liability and damages, Lucchesi wrote.
On Tuesday, environmentalists cheered the settlement.
“This gives our coastal communities certainty that the mine will close soon and that the land won’t be developed but will be protected for the public going forward,” said Jennifer Savage, California policy manager for the Surfrider Foundation.