Save Our Sunol sues to stop strip mine

Country Festival - Saturday, September 25 - to celebrate Sunol's rural spirit and help keep it that way

As you head south on I-680 from Pleasanton to Fremont, the view opens onto the scenic Sunol Valley.

Looking north you'll see the San Francisco Water Temple, built at the turn of the last century and recently restored by the San Francisco Public Works Commission. Behind the Temple rise towering cliffs, below them Alameda Creek, which drains the valley and is also fed by two reservoirs. As the Sunol and Niles Dams are removed, we hope to see the return of Pacific Coast steelhead. Between the freeway and the Temple is a 242-acre field of prime agricultural land, which has been used to grow walnuts, chives, grapes, and gladioli. A stone's throw away are the Sunol Glen School and the hamlet of Sunol.

South of I-680 the view is less bucolic. Here a surface mine has devastated the south end of the valley. More than half of our valley has succumbed to gravel mining since 1978, when Alameda County, without the benefit of any Environmental Impact Report, first granted the permits.

These permits were at least limited to the area south of I-680, but in 1995 the county issued yet another permit allowing Mission Valley Rock to leap across the freeway and mine the 242 acres of our chive field to a depth of 240 feet. If these permits stand, instead of a rural agricultural atmosphere, for the next 45 years Sunol residents will suffer noise, dust, siltation of the creek, and utter ecological destruction on our doorstep.

Since 1991 Save Our Sunol (SOS), a grassroots community group, has been opposing this ill-conceived project. The Sierra Club's Tri-Valley Group and numerous other environmental organizations as well as state and local agencies have raised concerns.

On May 8, 2002, SOS filed a lawsuit challenging approval of the quarry. The suit maintains that because the quarry had not completed all its permit approvals at the time Alameda County voters passed Measure D, in 2000, it counts as a new quarry under Measure D and may not go ahead without a vote of the electorate. The Superior Court ruled against SOS, and SOS has appealed. The San Francisco Bay Chapter has donated $2,500 to help with the legal costs. (SOS lost a previous suit challenging the project's Environmental Impact Report under state law.)

Country Festival

Saturday, September 25, 10 am to 4 pm, on Main Street in "downtown" Sunol.

Come to a Country Festival, sponsored by SOS along with other Sunol groups and the Sierra Club, to celebrate the rural spirit of the region and to help raise funds to keep it that way. Admission is free. There will be bluegrass bands, raffles, food, refreshments, and arts-and-crafts booths. For more information and applications for booth space, call Pat at (925) 862-2263 or see the SOS web site at: www.sunol.net

Neil Davies, SOS