A few weeks ago the City of Ione held a public hearing, as the Board of Supervisors had, to re-certify the EIR for the Newman Ridge project. Sondra West-Moore came up from Southern California to lead the project opponents. In her now standard melodramatic fashion, she attacked the project with distortions, misrepresentations and phony figures. This time, however, people with real life hands on experience discredited every one of her contentious claims and those of the few other objectors.
One of the speakers related the story of how he was contacted by a wide spread search for a world class deposit of andesite ideally located by a railroad, and became involved in an earlier quarry on the site. Another speaker spoke of long trains of rock having moved safely along the track (I would add that those criticizing the track condition are ignoring the required regulatory inspections before freight increases can occur, as well as Southern Pacific’s liability concerns). One proponent noted that the prior plant and the two proposed are behind the ridge line, exposing the false and subjective assertion of “visual pollution”. It seems that those protesting mineral extraction and manufacturing must believe that goods magically appear in stores.
A speaker that had done his homework cited West-Moore’s phony traffic figures by showing how she derived them from adding up different parts of the EIR along with confusion from the temporary construction phase. Another spoke of the insult assumed by those claiming danger from trucks passing by the elementary school by stating: “Those children are the trucker drivers’ children and grandchildren.” Since sympathy was presumed to be gained by West-Moore’s having her 90+ year old father there, hobbling on his cane in full veterans regalia, one attendee remarked that his father is the same age, also a decorated WW2 veteran, and strongly supports the project. The attempted theatrics failed. But reality returned when one speaker stated that these are jobs for our children and grandchildren. This saves our community and keeps our families intact.
When my time at the podium came, I related my weeks reading the EIR and the adventure of following the project opponents’ worldwide propaganda campaign. They changed the Supervisors and Planning Commissioners with being in the pocket of exploitive interests in a bias press release that, after a few internet repostings, became transformed into a news article. The companion petition gathered signatures from counties that some many people would need an atlas to locate. I also noted that having hot mix close at hand would reduce costs for the county road department. Concluding with the statement that I came of age in the 1960’s and had long ago internalized an expression of that time: “Tell it like it is, baby; tell it like it is,” I said that I consider the project opponents to be the pro-poverty lobby.
I spoke with many of those attending, including a gold miner, who thanked me for my presentation. Almost all of those in attendance were in favor of the project, probably because most of those at the hearing worked during the day. As hard working as our supervisors are, and with as many evening meetings as they already have to attend, we would all still benefit from having an occasional evening hearing that would draw a different demographic.
Copyright 2014, Mark L. Bennett
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