HELENA – Legislation that emerged from a ruckus about some Montana gravel pits and regulation of the gravel industry awaits action by Gov. Brian Schweitzer.
The Montana Environmental Information Center says Schweitzer should veto House Bill 678 because heavy amendment in the Senate ruined the measure. The construction industry has supported the bill. Montana Environmental Quality Director Richard Opper says the legislation has strengths and drawbacks, and “to veto the whole thing would be absolutely a mistake.”
Schweitzer has until May 9 to act on the bill, written following complaints that the Department of Environmental Quality was slow in processing applications to mine gravel. The bill also comes after a state audit found deficiencies in the agency’s open-cut mining unit, which deals mostly with gravel. Judges ordered DEQ to permit some gravel operations despite lack of environmental review; and some property owners complained that gravel pits spoiled residential areas.
Under the bill, DEQ stands to increase its staff that regulates open-cut mining. Money for the four additional jobs would come from the legislation’s industry-endorsed tax on the mining of gravel and some other materials, such as clay. The tax is projected to generate about $400,000 a year for DEQ, where the open-cut program now has a staff of four and a manager.
The bill also sets timeframes for state processing of gravel applications, establishes requirements for public notice when gravel operations are proposed and sets a threshold for property owners to meet if they want public meetings about gravel work proposed nearby.
Apart from the additional DEQ staffing and the public-notice requirements, Anne Hedges of the Montana Environmental Information Center finds the bill “riddled with problems.”
The discretion allowed DEQ in performing environmental analyses would shrink, as would conditions under which the agency could call public meetings, Hedges said Thursday.
“The timeframes are so short that I don’t think it’s possible for DEQ to do any extensive environmental analysis if one is necessary for things like groundwater or public-safety issues,” Hedges said.
The legislation was sound when it left the House, but amendments in the Senate spoiled the bill to the point that “it would be better to start over,” she said.
Montana Contractors Association executive Cary Hegreberg was out of his Helena office Thursday and not immediately available for comment. In mid-April, he said the bill “does the things people were asking for. The DEQ gets more resources, the public gets more notification and involvement and the industry gets more certainty.”
DEQ’s Opper said the agency is eager for the additional staff provided for in the bill, but he acknowledged the measure will make holding public meetings about gravel work more difficult.
“If DEQ thinks there should be a public meeting, we’re going to do our best to hold one,” he said. “We can probably find enough flexibility” to make that possible.
Opper said the bill is imperfect — “There are things we would have done differently, that MEIC would have done differently, that the industry would have done differently” — but it needs to be gauged after some time on the books.
“Let’s see how it works,” he said. “If we need to fix it in two years, we’ll get in there and fix it.”