Every citizen of Shasta County should read the draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the proposed Moody Flat Quarry north of Shasta Lake City. They are taking written public comments until December 18, and you need to voice your opinion. You, and every individual currently tasked with making the decision whether to move forward will be long dead by the time this project is in full production over the next 100 years.
Moody Flat Quarry EIR document can be found at this link. The project proposed to turn a 1380 ft and 1950 ft peak into 2 deep pits (pg 89). At peak, hauling 2 million tons of aggregate a year in a 24 X 7 operation, using rail and 560 truck trips each day (pg 90). Starting about page 20, the report outlines impacts to air quality, noise pollution, and visual degradation it labels as “Significant and Unavoidable.”
The impacts are entirely avoidable, at this point.
We’ve seen these companies and schemes before in Shasta County. With the (not insignificant) promise of some middle-class jobs, they exploit our local natural resources for profit that wont stay local. Millions, perhaps Billions in today’s dollars worth of gold and copper were taken from the hills surrounding Redding, leaving only hundred year old scars and polluted Superfund sites. Anyone in Redding can look to the northwest and see the actual and present legacy of the Iron Mountain Mine. Where did all those mining profits go? To Lord Keswick? Evidently not to the town of Keswick.
Shasta County has long played the foolish virgin. Too eager to give up her natural resource charms for plunder with little to show for it later. Our virginity in these matters is long vanished, and we should take heed of our own mining history. There may well be a need for the jobs and products this project will provide. But on balance the tradeoffs are simply too great, the impacts too substantial to permit the Moody Flats Quarry under the current proposal.
You can find a website opposing the Moody Flat quarry at the link. From my perspective as a local real estate agent, there is no upside to this project. I suspect the project is crucial to raising Shasta Dam, but will ultimately have a much larger impact on Redding area property values.
Unless there is “Significant and Unavoidable” impact to 3M in the form of leaving a big portion of our mineral wealth profits local, I oppose the project.
