Court rejects Russian River mining...

-
Syar Phase VI – Victory Over Pit Mining!

11/2009--Sometimes victory takes decades and in the case of the recent Superior Court ruling against Syar Industries efforts to continue strip mining the floodplains and groundwater aquifer it took over 25 years to stop this destructive mining.Read More...
http://www.russianriverkeeper.org/gravelmining.html

On November 10th, 2009, the Honorable Judge Robert Boyd ruled that the Syar Phase VI EIR was deficient on three points and granted our petition for Writ of Mandate to stay the approval of the EIR. The ruling found that the Syar EIR failed to explain why a reduced excavation alternative was environmentally inferior or infeasible, improperly tiers the EIR from the 1994 ARM Plan when it conflicted with the ARM Plan requirement to end pit mining in 2006 and failed to present sufficient evidence that other alternative gravel sources were inferior or infeasible. In fact Judge Boyd stated that, “An EIR or decision thereon cannot merely state that an alternative is infeasible simply because it is too expensive or will not lead to sufficient return without providing supporting analysis”. In other words since other sources of gravel exist they cannot be dismissed simply because one gravel company will not profit unless they continue mining.