DuPont gravel mine settlement agreement gets final approval

Here's a small victory for public employee unions in the environmental field: announcement from Governor's Office today (1/26/2012)


Ecology and three other parties announced today that an accord has been reached on a settlement agreement regarding DuPont gravel mining and watershed-shoreline protection.
The city of DuPont, Ecology, CalPortland Co., and a broad-based environmental coalition put together the agreement allowing CalPortland to seek new mining permits in the area while protecting the nearby Puget Sound shoreline and paying to restore Sequalitchew Creek. The DuPont City Council voted to authorize the agreement Tuesday night. This was the final step needed to ratify the DuPont Settlement Agreement, negotiated over a three-year period ending in 2011.

The environmental coalition includes Nisqually Delta Association, the Washington Environmental Council, People for Puget Sound, the Anderson Island Quality of Life Committee, and the Tahoma and Black Hills and Seattle Audubon societies. The company is seeking permits to expand mining into some 350 adjacent acres from the existing mine site. The negotiations involve a 1994 agreement that settled two decades of environmental disputes and appeals of shoreline development plans by creating a new vision for the shoreline’s use and protection and agreeing to a location for a dock to ship mining products. Mining began in 1997.

CalPortland predicts this agreement will help preserve approximately 60 union positions. Another 40 jobs lost during the economic downturn also could be eventually restored. In addition, the activities envisioned by the settlement agreement are likely to provide hundreds of hours of work for environmental engineers, consultants and contractors. This agreement does not approve or authorize any new mining. Both the restoration plan and any mining proposal will undergo the normal review processes, including opportunities for public input. This continuation of the 1994 settlement agreement includes preservation of 45 acres of Puget Sound shore lands and adjacent open space as well as improving flows in Sequalitchew Creek – both of which will help restore South Puget Sound. Recent studies also show that even modest increases in the water flowing through the creek would dramatically improve access to, and quality of, its fish habitat.