05/06/2005: "Will Berms & Screening Stop Stump Grinder Noise?"

Neighbors R. Packard & D. Cable On Grinder Site -Mr. Black (In Middle)

The SJC Hearing Examiner received a recommendation on Thursday to approve with conditions, an application by Thor Black, of Black Family Enterprises, for a conditional use permit for a commercial and light industrial development he currently operates on 4.28 acres. The property is at the end of the Friday Harbor airport, located on one of the few areas of private land that allows such development on San Juan Island.

Mr. Black has been operating a stump and construction material grinder on the site, and would like to expand the business to include retail sales and storage of products he manufactures out of the waste construction materials that are ground up in the large portable grinder. The proposal states A conditional use permit application for processing, outdoor storage and sales of landscaping materials such as bark, mulch, fertilizer, topsoil, sand gravel and other material used for landscaping; a business office, weight scale and retail sales of water tanks.

Many of the permit applications before the Hearing Examiner are poorly attended, but this application drew the attention of some in the neighborhood, all of whom had praise for Mr. Black, both as an individual and as an excavating contractor, but nonetheless expressed concerns that the development proposal was inappropriate, in both size and purpose, for the residential neighborhood it abutted.



Stephanie O'day, attorney for Mr. Black was quick to point out that the current condition of the property was not the result of Mr. Black's action, but resulted from a logging operation by the previous owner, Mr. Durhack. O'day maintained that if the permit was approved, then there "Will be more trees now then when Durhack got his hands on it".

David and Jane Cable maintained that the proposed location of the grinder was above the earth beams, and should in fact be below the berms. Mr. Cable's concern was that noise is a wave vibration that is stopped by barriers relative to the density of the barrier material, and if the crusher is to be located at the higher portion of the site, the sound will impact not only their neighborhood, but will travel across the bay and be audible far beyond the immediate neighborhood.

Hearing Examiner Wick Dufford, County Staff, the applicant and most of the audience, made a site visit to inspect the property and relate it to the maps and arguments made at the hearing. After additional full testimony from all, the Hearing Examiner closed the hearing, and will return a decision within a few weeks.