Two mines too many

Granite Construction’s claim of saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and clearing the atmosphere of pollution is ludicrous. Granite’s PR campaign utilizes company paid for economic and environmental “studies” based on quack science and half-truths to confuse area residents about the true effects the nation’s largest hard rock open pit mine will have on the Fallbrook area.

Locating the epicenter of their pollution source in Fallbrook merely shifts the air pollution concentration to Fallbrook, turning our air quality and congestion into that of Riverside, the worst in the nation. Fallbrook area residents are reminded that Granite Construction will soon be opening the Rosemary Mountain Quarry only six miles south of the Liberty Quarry site. Rosemary Quarry is located in Fallbrook and will also contribute enormous truck traffic and pollution to our area. That’s 966 semi-trucks out of Rosemary Quarry and 1,400 semi-trucks out of Liberty Quarry per day!

Granite’s big sales pitch to Riverside is the claim that they won’t have to drive as many gravel trucks through their county. What Granite fails to point out is that this super-sized mine complex will serve as a gravel hub for Southern California. So instead of trucks traveling just south, many of the trucks will head north from the Fallbrook mines. There will be a net increase of truck traffic in both directions.

Granite doled out over $1,100,000 (1.1 million) in 2006 California political campaigns to directly influence the permitting of their proposed mega-mine. Even Governor Schwartzenegger, who has “plenty of money,” got $40,000 out of Granite (www.followthemoney.org). So, we shouldn’t count on Arnold to bail us out of this one.

Granite’s pie-in-the-sky claims of saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars with cheap gravel remind me of recent promises of cheap oil. Monopolization of natural resources does not lower prices, it merely raises executive compensation to the stratosphere and Fallbrook residents will be left holding the gravel bag.

Scott Millen