Local physicians spoke out today against a quarry planned for the hills just south of Temecula.

The group, called Physicians Against the Quarry, held a meeting at Temecula’s Tower Plaza aiming to denounce a county report that says the quarry will have little to no impact on local air quality. The group is comprised of 146 Temecula Valley physicians.

The physicians had a responsibility as the vanguards of public health to speak out, said Dan Robbins, a pediatrician and the department chair of pediatrics for the Southwest Health Care System. “We must be guardians of the health of the people of the Temecula Valley, and there is a significant chance that the health of our patients will be affected by this project," he said.

He hoped the large number of physicians in the group would get the county's planning commission's attention. "This is too serious a health issue for the Riverside County planners and supervisors to ignore the opinion of 146 local physicians," Robbins said.

Much of the physicians' concerns were over an airborne particle called silica. “The dust and pollutants that will be in blown into our valley’s air as a result of the Liberty Quarry will contain needle shaped microscopic silica particles that can enter our airways including the air sacs in our lungs potentially causing chronic lung disease among other health problems,” Robbins said.

The explosions that will happen at the quarry are at the heart of the problem, said Reginald Watts, a retired vascular neurosurgeon. "The crushing or blasting techniques that this type of mining utilizes creates sharp sided silica which causes the health hazard, not to mention all of the other problems that come with heavily polluted air.”

Granite Construction, the company planning the mine, slated the quarry for a 414-acre lot bordering Temecula to the north and west and the county line to the south. The open-pit mine will stretch for about a mile from north to south and take up 135 acres.

The county's planning commission is scheduled to make its decision after two meetings about the project at 4 p.m. on April 26 and May 3 at Rancho Community Church, 31300 Rancho Community Way in Temecula.

County planners released a recommendation to approve the quarry, though the decision is up to the commission.

Members of Physicians Against the Quarry hope their expertise on public health can sway the commission to reject the plan.

“From a hospital perspective we are already short the number of beds for patients.  We won’t have the room to handle the influx of patients that are sick from the hazardous and polluted air,” said Philip Tafoya, an internal medicine specialist.

Physicians saw an increase in sick patients when the fires of recent years blew in soot and smoke, and the quarry will likely have the same effect, he said.

Robbins had a couple young patients with chronic asthma who ended up in the intensive care unit and almost died due to the polluted air created by the fires, he recalled.

“We are not opposed to gravel quarries, we simply are opposed to locating this particular quarry so near to where our patients live and go to school," Robbins said.

The report on the effect the quarry will have on the region, called the "Environmental Impact Report," has major flaws, the physicians said.

“The Environmental Impact Report is a weak document based on weak assumptions, improper wind speed analysis and out of date research and data,” Robbins said. “It does not take into account the fact that Granite Construction hires its own safety and air monitoring personnel or that the EIR was prepared by a consultant paid for by the applicant.”

If air pollutant levels exceed state standards, Granite Construction has to share that information with the public, but doesn't have to respond, some physicians said.