Regional lands might not be empty of gravel. But it’s getting harder to access and afford aggregate material for urban projects.
Clark County hasn’t seen a full-on gravel shortage yet, but its public works director, Pete Capell, said demand is increasing more than existing sources can handle. And demand can only grow as the local population increases.
In 2004 Clark County estimated its population at 383,300. By 2030, the state predicts it could hit 673,980. With all those people will come an ever-increasing demand for development and – you guessed it – aggregate.
“Population and aggregate consumption are almost a one-to-one-line relationship,” said Bruce Chattin, executive director of the Washington Aggregates and Concrete Association in Des Moines.
Chattin estimates construction in Washington uses nearly 77 million tons of aggregate a year, about 13 tons per capita. About 52 percent goes to transportation, 23 percent to residential construction and 17 percent to commercial.
In 1994 it was predicted that the gravel pits of Clark County’s southern area – its most populated and fastest-developing – would be depleted by 2006 if no new mines were developed. A 2000 assessment found depletion at nearly all of the county’s 70 active sand and gravel mining sites.
Six new permits have been issued for sand and gravel mining since 1994. This increased resources enough that Capell said there’s sufficient gravel for current projects. But Clark County Planner Mike Mabrey said the new sites were fairly small and are already low if not depleted. So gravel remains hard to get, and not just in South County.
“To the best of my knowledge, all of the gravel sources with permits in the North County-Woodland area and in Orchards have ceased mining,” Mabrey told the VBJ in an email.
Other options may be to barge rock in on the Columbia River from northern pits, or to use more crushed quarry rock. It gets a higher volume of aggregate but is known to have poor strength and durability.
Development of larger mining sites has been deterred by multiple owners, a lack of water rights and long distances from the market. And expansion of mining along the east fork of the Lewis River has been “extremely controversial and tied up in litigation for years,” Mabrey said.
Clark County is looking at reopening its own gravel pit on Livingston Mountain, about five miles from Camas. Capell expects it will be cost effective and will let the county get rock when it’s needed.
“Even if the private supplier provided it, we may have a hard time getting it when we need it,” Capell said.
State Rep. Ed Orcutt has observed rock exports from Cowlitz County to Clark County in his work with Niemi Forestry in Kelso.
“Pits in Cowlitz County are getting some business either from shortage of rock down there or cost of mining in Clark County,” said Orcutt. He added that this could be “because there are not enough mining opportunities in Clark County, or the regulations on it are just so great that it’s just more cost effective to do it from here.”
Obtaining permits for a new mine can take seven to 10 years and cost up to $1 million each of those years, according to Chattin. That’s just one reason many property owners have found it more worthwhile to build on top of mineral-rich urban lands, Capell said.
As it is, nearly all of Vancouver south of SR-500 sits on top of inaccessible sand and gravel. “When this area developed, there were still sand and gravel sources available outside of the urban area,” Mabrey wrote of the county’s past land use plans.
But using rock from rural areas often increases the cost of urban projects.
“Every time you push that aggregate source out 20 or 25 miles you double the delivered cost. That starts to add up after a while,” said Ron Teissere, a Washington state geologist.
In his view, a different approach to land use could have prevented the current situation.
“It’s a matter of decisions that society as a whole has made about land use,” Teissere said. “Mining can create any kind of landscape you want.”
As possible remedies, Teissere suggested mining urban lands in small pieces over short periods of time or finding more financial benefits to having mineral-rich counties export gravel regionally.
But overall, he said, it’s ideal to make the best possible use of local materials before developing them elsewhere. As an example, Columbia Tech Center was developed in a former gravel mine in Vancouver. Rock at the site aided in construction and the mining area became part of the center’s landscape.
“They did a fantastic job. They mined it out fast and built the center right behind it,” Teissere said. “(They got) the economic benefit of the resource and the high land value.”
Charity Thompson can be reached at cthompson@vbjusa.com.
