Difference between revisions of "Sand Mining in California's Central Coast Region"
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* 2010 - The [[California Coastal Commission]] and [https://www.usace.army.mil/ Army Corps of Engineers] decides to look at the CEMEX Lapis Plant under the microscope following allegations from the public that the property owner was using bulldozers to push sand into the dredge pond <ref name="cease and desist">Notification of Intent to Commence Cease and Desist Order and Restoration Order Proceedings and Administrative Civil Penalties Proceedings https://documents.coastal.ca.gov/reports/2017/7/th22/th22-7-2017-exhibits.pdf </ref>. The Army Corps issued an independent determination that the dredge pond was subject to Section 404 of the [[Clean Water Act]] which prohibits placement of fill. The Army Corps required, and CEMEX agreed, to cease the usage of mechanized equipment to push sand into the dredge pond. <ref name="staff report"/>
* 2010 - The [[California Coastal Commission]] and [https://www.usace.army.mil/ Army Corps of Engineers] decides to look at the CEMEX Lapis Plant under the microscope following allegations from the public that the property owner was using bulldozers to push sand into the [[Sand Mining in California's Central Coast Region#Systems and Processes|dredge pond]] <ref name="cease and desist">Notification of Intent to Commence Cease and Desist Order and Restoration Order Proceedings and Administrative Civil Penalties Proceedings https://documents.coastal.ca.gov/reports/2017/7/th22/th22-7-2017-exhibits.pdf </ref>. The Army Corps issued an independent determination that the dredge pond was subject to Section 404 of the [[Clean Water Act]] which prohibits placement of fill. The Army Corps required, and CEMEX agreed, to cease the usage of mechanized equipment to push sand into the dredge pond. <ref name="staff report"/>
* 2014 - The [[California Coastal Commission]] begins a series of meetings phone calls, and site visits with representatives of the CEMEX Lapis Plant property owner. <ref name="cease and desist"/>
* 2016 Mar 15 - The [[City of Marina|Marina]] City Council adopts a resolution authorizing the City Manager to request that the [[California Coastal Commission]] assist and coordinate with the City in any enforcement proceedings pursued in relation to possible violations of the [[California Coastal Act]] and the Marina [[Local Coastal Programs in California's Central Coast Region| Local Coastal Program]] by the CEMEX Lapis Plant sand mining operations. <ref name="council meeting">Finding the current operation of the CEMEX mine meets the elements required for a Public Nuisance https://documents.coastal.ca.gov/reports/2017/7/th22/th22-7-2017-exhibits.pdf </ref>
The 400-acre CEMEX Lapis Sand Plant is the only sand mining plant currently operating in California, and the United States. The CEMEX Lapis Plant is located in the City of Marina, Monterey County, eight miles north of Monterey along Highway 1 and within the Lower Salinas River Watershed. [1] The area to the north and south of the CEMEX Lapis Plant primarily consists of undisturbed coastal dunes. The property is situated between Martin Dunes owned by the Big Sur Land Trust (BSLT) to the immediate north and Marina Dunes Preserve immediately to the south owned by Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District (MPRPD).
From 1906-1990, the Southern Monterey Bay Region in California's Central Coast was the most intensively mined shoreline in the United States. [2] Southern Monterey beach sands have been valued for a wide variety of commercial uses because of the sand composition, hardness, roundness, color, and purity. [3] As many as six sand mines, which includes the current CEMEX Lapis Plant, were active at various times over the past century in the City of Marina and City of Sand City. Mining at the CEMEX Lapis Plant property began between 1906 and 1907 [4]. The property was owned by a number of entries prior to CEMEX taking over in 2005 [4]. In the early 1900s, all six mines took sand directly off the beach but in 1959, beach mining ceased as mines started to use an ocean dragline, which is a claw or shovel attached to a cable that extracts sand from the ocean, below the mean tide line [4]. In the early 1960s, the previous CEMEX Lapis Plant property owner submitted an application to the Army Corps of Engineers, California State Lands Commission, and Monterey County and secured authorizations to construct a dragline. However, a dragline was never installed. Instead, a dredge was created on the property to extract sand via a man-made pond located approximately 1,400 feet inland of the ocean. [3][4] At the time, the dredge pond was about 200 feet wide by 300 feet long, with a depth of 38 feet. Around 1965, the dredge pond was moved to the beach near where it currently sits and its operation resulted in creating a second dredge pond. [4]
The Army Corps of Engineers determined that all mines needed authorization pursuant to the Rivers and Harbors Act and granted all such permit applications. However, after the first authorizations expired, the Army Corps determined that the coastal sand mines were causing erosion and stopped issuing permits for coastal sand mines using draglines. Since the Army Corps no longer issued permits, all of the mining operations in the City of Marina using draglines stopped by 1986, and the last dragline mining operation in Monterey Bay in the City of Sand City stopped by 1990. The Army Corps did not require the dredge pond on the CEMEX property to obtain a dragline permit. As such, the 400-acre CEMEX Lapis Plant is the only sand mine in California that continues to operate. [4]
2010 - The California Coastal Commission and Army Corps of Engineers decides to look at the CEMEX Lapis Plant under the microscope following allegations from the public that the property owner was using bulldozers to push sand into the dredge pond [7]. The Army Corps issued an independent determination that the dredge pond was subject to Section 404 of the Clean Water Act which prohibits placement of fill. The Army Corps required, and CEMEX agreed, to cease the usage of mechanized equipment to push sand into the dredge pond. [4]
2017 May 16 - The State Lands Commission issues a letter to CEMEX stating that sand in the dredge pond comes in with the tides and so is subject to the agency's jurisdiction. CEMEX must either immediately submit a lease application, conduct environmental studies, and pay royalties, or cease dredge pond operations or face civil liability and damages because of the financial and resource impacts of its operations on the state. Specifically, the State Lands Commission noted that "the intensity of sand extraction at the Lapis operation causes environmental damage, public and private property damage, and loss of economic benefit through beach erosion." [10]
CEMEX will have a seeding and regrading plan by 31 Dec 2021 and completion of the full Remediation Plan by 31 Dec 2025.
2017 July 13 - At the monthly California Coastal Commission meeting, nine of the twelve Commissioners vote unanimously (3 of the members were absent) to approve the settlement agreement and shutdown the CEMEX Lapis Plant by 2020 Dec 31. [11]
2018 Jan: City of Marina Mayor Bruce Delgado attended a meeting at Moss Landing Marine Lab to discuss the disposition of the CEMEX property, hosted by the Big Sur Land Trust (BSLT), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District (MPRPD) who wanted input from various leaders and biologists regarding what kind of public access, restoration, and research needed to happen on the property once vacated. The consensus was that the north half of the property not have public access since it has not been disturbed. Public access should be focused on those portions of the property that have been disturbed [12]
2019 - The California Coastal Commission agrees to assist and partner with the City of Marina to update appropriate zoning and policies and redefine the vision of the City for the reuse of the CEMEX site in the Marina Local Coastal Land Use Plan [13]
2019 - The City of Monterey on behalf of the coastal communities in the Southern Monterey Bay (SMB) Littoral Cell is developing an opportunistic sand use program. The goal of the Monterey Bay Opportunistic Beach Nourishment Program (OBNP) is to streamline the placement of clean, beach compatible sediments from upland sources onto beaches of Monterey Bay with high rates of erosion. Part of streamlining the process is the stockpile the sand at on beach receiver sites(s). The CEMEX Lapis Plant property is being considered as a receiver site. The OBNP project was born out of the actions identified in the California Coastal Sediment Management Master Plan. One of the key goals of the Sediment Master Plan and related studies is to develop a process that helps to manage sand on a regional or littoral cell basis.
Sand is a valuable part of the coastal land and dune ecosystem and is not a renewable resource. [14] The Monterey Bay tidal system moves sand along the shore, therefore sand removed from one location impacts the entire shoreline.[15] Sand mining is one of two major regional activities that have changed the sand supply into the Southern Monterey Bay (SMB) Littoral Cell, which extends from the breakwater in Monterey north to the head of Monterey Submarine Canyon. [3] Historically, the Salinas River contributes sand to the SMB cell however, dams on the Salinas River and movement of the river mouth have reduced the amount of sand brought into the cell; the dams trap about 33% of the sand load. [3][16] As such, the Salinas River no longer yields significant sand to nourish southern Monterey Beaches. The CEMEX Lapis Plant mines sand originating from the Salinas River, and the amount of sand removed vastly exceeds what is added into the cell from the Salinas River.
Eroded dune sand primarily collects in one of two dredge ponds, the largest a 1,000 square feet artificial pond in the shoreline on the property. [3] The size and relative location of the pond varies over time due to sand extraction, erosion, and depending on the time of year. Bulldozers are used to recontour and recreate the dredge pond when the pond fills with sediment. Every year, the pond fills with sand carried by winter waves or wind. A floating hydraulic dredge, approximately 60 feet long and 30 feet wide, extracts the sand to a depth of 30 feet. [4] The dredge moves around the pond via the use of cables connected to a number of anchors placed on the beach surrounding the dredge pond. The dredge extracts a mixture of sand and water which is pumped inland towards processing plants. Sand that does not meet grain size requirements is placed in sand stockpiles. CEMEX is required under the City of Marina Local Coastal Plan to report on stockpile size but the amount has not been reported since 1992 however, the total volume of the sand in stockpiles appears to have grown over time. [4]
Sand mined from the pond at the CEMEX Lapis Plant is removed directly from the SMB Littoral Cell. The CEMEX Lapis Plant mines an estimated 326,000 cubic yards of sand per year and removes roughly 50 percent or more from the SMB Littoral Cell sand supply and budget. [5] Between 1986 to 2013, CEMEX mined more than 6.8 million cubic yards (8.4 million tons) of sand that will never return to the coastal system. A general argument is that mining diminishes sand deposits on beaches and accelerates coastal erosion. Sand mining in coastal dune systems can lead to long term erosion of approximately 0.5 to 1.5 meters per year. [17] The southern Monterey shoreline on average is the most erosive shoreline in California. [18] Erosion rates are highest in the north, closer to the sand mine and decrease southward.
Along a 8-mile stretch of coastline from the CEMEX Lapis mine to Del Monte Beach, the average retreat rate is 4 ft/year and totals 250,000 cubic yards/year which is essentially the same volume of sand removed by the CEMEX Lapis Plant [3]. Reductions in erosion and dune retreat are expected should mining stop, as more sand would be contributed to the littoral cell and move down the coast. [16]
The CEMEX Lapis Plant has never been issued a Coastal Development Permit under the California Coastal Act of 1976 for the overall operation. CEMEX also does not have authorization for sand extraction from the California State Lands Commission, City of Marina, or County of Monterey.
Local Coastal Program Permit - from the City of Marina. The City of Marina put out a request for proposals for a Local Coastal Plan update, in which one task includes drafting a vision for the reuse of CEMEX Lapis Plant property. [20]
1964 Apr 10: Army Corps grants Department of Army Permit 64-18 to the property owner for the extraction of a maximum of 100,000 tons of sand per year from a 2,200-foot long area along the shoreline not to extend further than 200 feet seaward of the MHTL. [4]
1965 - Monterey County planning staff, in response to an inquiry for the State Lands Commission, reviewed the paperwork and permits for the dredge pond on the property and found that the dredge pond was not permitted and illegal. The property owner did not have permits from the County at the effective date of California Proposition 20, creation of the California Coastal Commission. [4]
1988 Aug 8 - City of Marina approved Coastal Development Permit 3-MAR-88-006 for construction of a new processing plant. The CDP does not provide authorization for the overall use of the property or the dredge pond. The CDP was not appealed and became final, and the demolition and construction occurred in 1989.
1997 July 14 - City of Marina approved CDP 3-MAR-97-001 for a for a 186 sq. ft. single story addition to an existing scale house building located near the entrance road. [4]
Various private and public organizations have interests in sand mining and the status of the CEMEX Lapis Plant. Some of these are:
↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 Testimony to California Coastal Commission on Sand Mining in City of Marina https://documents.coastal.ca.gov/reports/2017/7/th22/th22-7-2017-exhibits.pdf
↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 Staff Report: Recommendations and Findings for Consent Settlement Agreement and Cease and Desist Order https://documents.coastal.ca.gov/reports/2017/7/th22/th22-7-2017-report.pdf
↑ [https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/th22-7-2017-appendices.pdf California Coastal Comission. 2017. CONSENT SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT AND CEASE AND DESIST ORDER CCC-17-CD-02. State of California Natural Resources Agency.]
↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Notification of Intent to Commence Cease and Desist Order and Restoration Order Proceedings and Administrative Civil Penalties Proceedings https://documents.coastal.ca.gov/reports/2017/7/th22/th22-7-2017-exhibits.pdf
↑ California State Lands Commission letter: Activities of concern at CEMEX Lapis Plant, Marina, California https://documents.coastal.ca.gov/reports/2017/7/th22/th22-7-2017-exhibits.pdf
↑ MINUTES for City Council Meeting of Wednesday, January 17, 2018 https://cityofmarina.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/8564