ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

Dear Commissioner,

I am writing to you because of my great concern for the Ojai and Cuyama Valleys and our Los Padres National Forest. Ardently, I hope and pray that my words will reach your mind and understanding.

During the hearing in Santa Maria on May 30 re the Diamond Rock Mine application, there was powerful testimony given by many government and private entities, and by many individuals. Accordingly, the revised environmental impact report is totally inadequate and does not meet the requirement of the intent of the law. To approve this EIR would place the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission on very shaky ground.

Please do not rely on the advice of your planning staff. During any planning process, the applicant naturally develops a close and friendly relationship with the staff. It is the strategy of the applicant, in this case the applicant for the Diamond Mine operation, to win over the planners early-on. Thus, the public is basically left out of the process until the public hearing. During the intermissions on May 30, the applicant and your planner were engaged in intimate, earnest and totally amiable conversations, giving the impression of being old-time buddies. Our government has become totally out-of-tune with its citizens. We are not governed by our elected and appointed officials, but by a network of insensitive bureaucrats.

Your approval of the revised EIR would negatively impact and degrade our beloved Los Padres National Forest and the Cuyama and Ojai Valleys for generations. The year-in and year-out exhaust of thousands of diesel trucks during the mine’s 30-year operation, with perhaps as many as 270 daily trips to and from the mine by these double-hopper behemoths, will do irreparable damage to the forest and endanger the lives of travelers on Scenic Highway 33. The Ojai Valley, surrounded by mountains, has a very limited air capacity. It and the Simi Valley have the most adverse air conditions in Southern California, according to records published in the Los Angeles Times.

To use Ojai as an industrial trucking route will ruin Ojai’s environment and economy, as was amply testified on May 30. Our National Forest and the Ojai Valley are national treasures, known the world over. To destroy them will make us all poorer. According to an obscure clause in the proposed conditional use permit for the mine, these giants could travel daily through historic down-town Ojai, any time day or night. Good-bye affluent tourists, good-bye Ojai Music Festival, good-bye Ojai Tennis Tournament, good-bye guests at the fabled Ojai Valley Inn & Spa and its world-class golf course! After the Diamond Rock Mine becomes operational, life in Ojai and Cuyama will be a nightmare. Many inhabitants will flee the valleys, having to sell their homes and/or businesses for a fraction of their value.

Nowhere, neither at the hearing nor in any published literature, was it proven that the aggregate from the Diamond Mine would be the only source of its kind for Ventura, Santa Barbara, and nearby counties. Where are the relevant statistics? It is highly doubtful that the economies of our counties would collapse, if deprived of the material of this mine. The Ojai and Cuyama Valleys and our Los Padres National Forest are irreplaceable gems and must be preserved for future generations. Their long-term economic worth is million times greater than the short-term gain of this mine. Our environmental impact reports were instituted as laws on both the federal and state level to protect our environment and the quality of life of our citizens.

To ignore the serious, negative impacts of the mine, shove the EIR under the table, and give the permit anyway is highly irresponsible. Of course, the push is on to pave over the remainder of Southern California, come hell or high water. We need that stuff, the aggregate from that mine, and thus must let the environment and the living standard of thousands of people slide down the drain. As one of the supporters of the mine said at the hearing ‘the quality of life issue is not important anymore.’

Dear Commissioner, I appeal to your conscience and common sense to weigh the massive evidence and reject the application for the Diamond Rock Mine.”

Ojai readers, please know that Caltrans is cooperating by rebuilding the bridge across the San Antonio Creek at Ojai Avenue. According to a June14 e-mail from Caltrans, “Construction is on schedule to begin at the end of this year.” The new bridge, no doubt, will be able to handle the behemoth trucks from the mine, driving on Highway 150 past Ojai’s Post Office and Arcade to Santa Paula, where a huge new development and a new asphalt plant will await them.

THE MINE MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS!!!!!!

Maria Studer