Santa Margarita residents worry over proposed Las Pilitas quarry
Shelley Miguel firmly raised her right hand to motion a long line of motorists to stop as she guided a slew of busy children through a crosswalk in Santa Margarita as school let out last week.
“The visibility on this hill, it’s terrible,” said Miguel, a Santa Margarita Elementary crossing guard who has a sixth-grader at the school. She shielded her eyes from the sun as she pointed about 100 yards eastward from the intersection of H Street and Highway 58, which is marked Estrada Avenue in that section of town. “It’s a dangerous spot right here, and I would not like to see a bunch of big, heavy trucks barreling through. It’s the only road in and out … and already the street is dangerous.”
Highway 58 is the main street in town and winds through rural neighborhoods in the eastern valley before turning west through the community’s core, where it becomes El Camino Real. The idea that it could become the main route for dozens of gravel trucks if the proposed Las Pilitas rock quarry is approved has been the talk of the town in recent weeks.
Longtime residents say the majority of their small North County community is against the quarry, which would mine as much as 500,000 tons of gravel per year and generate an estimated average 273 truck trips per day, with most of the trucks passing through downtown Santa Margarita.
Its haul route would take those trucks from the quarry’s proposed site at 6660 Calf Canyon Road — approximately a quarter mile west of the Parkhill Road intersection — along Highway 58 through the valley, past an elementary school and county park where children play, over a railroad crossing and west into downtown Santa Margarita along El Camino Real, past shops and homes to reach Highway 101.
The site is also about 3 miles from the edge of town, northeast off Highway 58 in the valley, or about 2 miles from town “as the crow flies,” county planners say.
There are already two existing quarries in the Santa Margarita area — the Lehigh Hanson and Rocky Canyon Quarry mines — but their impact is mitigated because their primary routes take trucks outside of town, whereas the majority of Las Pilitas’ trucks would travel through town.
The Las Pilitas Resources project was denied a permit earlier this month by the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission, but the applicant has appealed the board’s decision to the county Board of Supervisors. A hearing date hasn’t been set.
Traffic has been a key concern raised by opponents of the Las Pilitas quarry who spoke at the commission meeting, as well as at the quarry meetings before it.
On a recent afternoon, The Tribune walked around the small community of about 1,250 people, which includes residential neighborhoods on either side of El Camino Real and is lined with several shops and restaurants in the downtown core.
The town remains the same 0.5-square-mile area that was first planned in 1889.
Residents worried
At the Margarita Mercantile & Co., manager Donna Magee leaned over the counter and shook her head as she looked out the shop’s large glass windows at Highway 58.
When asked if she supported the proposed quarry, she said she was indifferent.
“Me? I don’t care one way or another. I just care about the children,” she said. “I see kids standing there for 25 minutes (waiting to cross), and the people won’t stop. Everybody’s in too much of a hurry.”
Dust is also a concern for businesses on the town’s main drag, as existing traffic from semi-trucks already stirs it up.
“The dust — the dust is so bad,” Magee said. “It comes in through the doors and covers the shelves. We have to dust every day as it is.”
Up the street, Simone Smith stood in front of her business, The Educated Gardener nursery, and talked over the noise of the occasional truck traffic that currently passes on the highway.
“It’s all about ‘We’re already on a highway,’ which, yes. But it’s not like Highway 101. (The truck traffic) here is usually pretty light. You can see now we’re not trying to dodge trucks,” she said.
Smith has been in business off El Camino Real for 25 years, she said, and also has a home in town. Her small, tight-knit community is a place where children play, people walk their dogs and everyone meanders about during quiet afternoons.
She’s concerned that a new quarry would damage that peace.
“I’ve seen people not willing to speak up, and that’s why I am,” she said. “It will affect us. It will change the community. It will endanger people.”
Smith is specifically concerned with safety issues associated with the increased traffic from the gravel trucks.
“I’m not against truck drivers or quarries in general, or about progress, but it’s purely about location,” she said. “People spout the word ‘property rights,’ and that’s all well and good. But when it affects a whole community — that’s the issue. It’s just going to totally change the character and quality of the town because it will become a heavily traveled truck route.”
Adding more semi-trucks to the town’s circulation would pose problems, Smith said, not only because it would put additional drivers on the road, but also because it would place slower-moving, rock-hauling semi-trucks in front of and behind existing motorists and pedestrians.
“How often do you see people getting frustrated behind a slow-moving vehicle?” she asked. “That’s just how people are. That’s guaranteed. We’ve all had near misses by impatient drivers.”
Back at the school crossing, Miguel expressed a similar worry. She thinks parents picking up their kids from school in cars will pile down the pedestrian-heavy side streets, like H Street, to avoid large gravel trucks, endangering families pushing baby strollers, riding bikes and walking home from school.
Outside of town
East of town, in the valley, Roy and Bonnie Reeves are anxious about impacts the quarry could have on their rural residential neighborhood off Parkhill Road, about a mile from the proposed quarry site.
The retired couple, who have lived in the area for about 13 years, formed the Margarita Proud opposition group with about 200 followers around three years ago when the quarry idea originally surfaced. Their main concerns are traffic, safety, noise, dust and a potential loss in property values for existing homes.
“This is a neighborhood — that’s just such a huge issue,” Bonnie Reeves said from her living room, her face fixed in worry. “I think the dust and the scenic destruction (would mean) a lot of people wouldn’t want to live here anymore.”
There are roughly 25 homes within 3,000 feet of the proposed quarry site, she said.
The Lehigh Hanson quarry is also near her neighborhood, and she and her husband sometimes hear noise from the business. But they said it’s not too disruptive.
It helps that the Hanson trucks also take a different haul route than the proposed quarry would, according to the county.
Hanson primarily takes a private access road through the Santa Margarita Ranch, which leases the quarry property to Hanson. That access road takes the trucks north to the Garden Farms area south of Atascadero, bypassing Highway 58 and the town of Santa Margarita. County planners say a small portion of that company’s traffic does go through town, however, depending on the trucks’ destination.
With the Las Pilitas quarry, Bonnie Reeves worries about the daily commute of her neighbors who travel in and out of the area in the mornings and early evenings — as well as regular errands for retired homeowners like her and her husband, as they make trips into town. She also says large groups of cyclists roll through those narrow roads.
“Accidents are bound to happen,” she said. “People would come out on some of these sharp turns and run right into a truck.”
Resident Donna Cassera, who also lives in the valley across from the Hanson’s quarry, doesn’t have the same concerns about the proposed quarry’s impact.
“I have no vested interest in this project, but I don't agree with the reasoning being given to deny it,” she wrote in an email to The Tribune. She says she’s heard worries over the gravel trucks speeding through town or on Highway 58.
“The parents that travel along 58 drive much faster than the trucks do, and I know this because my children actually attended Santa Margarita Elementary School,” she said. “The parents that volunteer as crossing guards every morning will tell you the hazards from speeding cars are the real threat to the children and them, not the truckers who are courteous and drive with caution.”
She also thinks that a bump in traffic through town could be helpful.
“Let’s not forget that most of the businesses in our small town are service-oriented,” she said. “Any increase in traffic through our town will benefit these businesses, too.”
‘Not real happy’
Back in town, Jim McEntire waited for a break in traffic to cross Highway 58 to reach The Porch Café, one of his favorite eateries.
The retired Southern Pacific Railroad engineer says he lives about a mile outside Santa Margarita and considers the small town his home. The idea of adding more semi-trucks to its main drag doesn’t sit well with him. “I’m just not real happy with it,” he said. “(All those) trucks going through the town, through the school zone, through a terrible railroad crossing — that just doesn’t seem right.”
This story was originally published February 21, 2015 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Santa Margarita residents worry over proposed Las Pilitas quarry."