Quarry-Killing Bill Set for Final Vote

The anti-Liberty Quarry bill, sponsored by the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, was approved with a 7-0 vote Tuesday morning by the state Senate's Committee on Natural Resources and Water.

The bill, which would allow the tribe to block the permitting of a rock quarry on a swath of land it considers sacred, however is not expected to make it to the Senate floor for a vote in the near future.

Instead, the bill will now move to the Senate Rules Committee, and will remain there at least until the Riverside County Planning Commissioners take their vote at the meeting Wednesday, August 31, at 3 p.m. They will make a recommendation to the County Board of Supervisors, which has the final say.

To get the bill out of that committee, the Natural Resources and Water Committee could request a new hearing on the bill as written or call for amendments. It could take as long as January, said committee chairwoman Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Santa Monica.

In the meantime, the senators on the committee urged the Pechanga and Northern California-based Granite Construction to continue talking and reach an agreement.

Anti-quarry factions see the action as a victory and encourage attendance. They also ask that people wear orange to show solidarity.

“It is imperative that we have hundreds of people at this meeting to influence the Commissioners,” anti-quarry activist Jerry Arganda said. “We need to show the commissioners that we are willing to do whatever we need to get a ‘NO’ vote from them.”

Granite has proposed operating a rock mine on 400 acres of land that is just west of the tribe's reservation and south of the city of Temecula's border.

The tribe considers that land sacred, and it tried to protect the land via legislation after a review of the proposed quarry by the Riverside County Planning Department did not consider the land culturally significant.

The bill's author, Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, told the committee at the start of Tuesday's hearing that she crafted the legislation to create an "area of protection" for land tied to the tribe's creation story.

"It uses fairly plain language to protect the setting for a story so detailed and important to the Luiseno people that to tell it properly takes three days," she said.

The state has rules covering the permitting of mining for metals on lands that a tribe considers sacred. Lowenthal's legislation would amend that state code to cover aggregate rock-mining operations on land that includes the wellspring of the Santa Margarita River and the Pechanga tribe's creation site.

Granite officials ---- spokesman Ed Manning and Liberty Quarry Project Manager Gary Johnson ---- told the committee that the tribe did not identify the quarry site as sacred six years ago, when the company was first considering the project.

They argued that to make that assertion now, at the eleventh hour, and use legislation to block the project would amount to an illegal taking. They also said it would be inappropriate for the state Legislature to take away land-use decisions from the county of Riverside.

Pechanga Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro said the tribe has long been on the record as being concerned about the proposed quarry.

"We trusted the environmental review process," he said. "But it's on a tragic trajectory for the Luiseno peoples."

Granite has spent close to $10 million on the project, Johnson said, and the county's Planning Commission has conducted five long hearings and meetings on it. After the commission is finished, the county Board of Supervisors will take up the project and there will probably be legal challenges.

"Has the local process failed? It seems to me it hasn't played itself out," said Sen. Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield.

Sen. Doug La Malfa, R- Richvale, asked Macarro whether it was possible for the region's aggregate needs to be served by a mine in a different location, and he asked whether some sort of land swap might help both sides fulfill their goals.

"We're not anti-mine," Macarro said. "We're reasonable people, and we could consider some solution that could go outside the legislation."

Johnson said Granite also is interested in reopening talks.

"I hope when we walk out of here today, that would continue. Instead of taking up legislation, encourage us to go back and talk and work something out," he said.

On the larger issues triggered by the bill, Manning told the committee that the legislation could set a "troubling precedent" for the state if it is approved.

"There are in California 110 federally recognized tribes. Each of them has a different creation story and mythology," he said. "This bill will certainly send a signal that the Legislature is going to put itself in place in front of local government."

You can also read more here: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/temecula/article_d06fe6b5-2f94-530c-86f9-1a122c94e298.html#ixzz1VxkLCbMO