Note: This story was updated March 8 to include a response from a Lehigh Hanson official that came too late for the print edition.
Local residents encouraged by recent news that Santa Clara County is exploring the possibility of purchasing the long-standing cement plant and quarry south of Los Altos may need to temper their enthusiasm with the understanding that the idea is far from realized.
“It was as much a question as it was a proposal,” said Supervisor Joe Simitian last week.
Simitian, who brought the proposal before his fellow supervisors last month, held his seventh annual public meeting on the Lehigh Southwest Cement Co. and Permanente Quarry March 2.
The virtual meeting, with approximately 250 attendees, featured regulatory officials offering updates on the status of plant and quarry conditions, as well as any recent violations.
Historically the county’s dirtiest polluters, the plant and quarry are heavily monitored by local, regional, state and federal agencies, ranging from the city of Cupertino, which includes a portion of the Lehigh land, to the Santa Clara County planning and environmental health departments and Office of the County Counsel, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Minimal activity
In general, agency officials reported minimal activity or violations at the Lehigh site. The pandemic and the breakdown of a kiln at the cement plant stifled manufacturing efforts. As a result, John Marvin of the air district reported no violations in 2021 or this year.
“There’s not a whole lot of activity out there,” said Mickey Pierce with the county’s Department of Environmental Health.
Roshni Brahmbhatt of the EPA said her agency continues to work with Lehigh operators across the country, honoring a November 2020 “consent decree” – an agreement to reduce air pollution emissions common across a range of sites.
Ryan Olah and Joseph Terry of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told of work with Lehigh Hanson to relocate an endangered species of frog downstream from the plant along Permanente Creek.
Elizabeth Pianca of the Office of the County Counsel noted that a lawsuit filed by Lehigh against the county over its expansion efforts was resolved last September in favor of the county. Lehigh did not appeal the ruling. She also spoke of an enforcement agreement from last June involving the county and the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District – which owns open space adjacent to the quarry. Both entities can conduct inspections of a protected ridgeline on Lehigh property and issue violations if necessary.
Acquisition questions
The annual meeting came amid recent high-profile actions initiated by Simitian, whose District 5 includes Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and Mountain View. Over the past two months, the county supervisor has called on county staff to compile a 10-year record of violations involving Lehigh and to pursue options for county acquisition of the site.
“The acquisition of the property, either from a willing seller or by use of eminent domain, could accelerate the closure and restoration of the property, and allow for a more community-focused consideration of how the land should be used in the future,” Simitian said in a statement.
At the meeting, he noted that the county was at a “pivot point, perhaps a time of receptivity.”
According to Simitian, Lehigh officials, who, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, had pushed for expansion through a reclamation plan amendment, have since backed off that plan. He added that executives were at least open to discussing the land acquisition, coming on the heels of last year’s Lehigh Hanson sale to Martin Marietta of all western region properties – with the exception of the Cupertino hills location.
“Certainly Lehigh has a financial interest in, you know, avoiding the $60 million to $100 million that reclamation’s probably going to entail,” Simitian said.
Officials acknowledge that filling the large quarry pit and restoring the land to a stable condition is a formidable task. A third-party analysis recently presented to the county said the $63 million earmarked for Lehigh to conduct reclamation was not nearly enough to do the job.
Cupertino resident Rhoda Fry has been closely following the activities of the quarry and cement plant for years.
“In my opinion, in spite of Lehigh’s ambitious expansion proposal, Martin Marietta declined to buy,” she said. “I don’t think that Lehigh could have even given it away in a package deal, first because the expansion proposal is not feasible … and second because of the gargantuan remediation costs.”
Fry figured filling the 1,000-foot deep quarry would cost at least $100 million, in addition to cleanup and stabilization of other areas at the site, such as the Yeager Yard, cement plant facilities and an old rail yard.
“The Permanente plant and quarry were never included in the west region assets to be sold,” Lehigh spokesman Jeff Sieg said Monday. “With a pending reclamation plan amendment (currently under revision) and creek restoration project, adding Permanente to the West Region sale would have slowed the transaction. Instead, Lehigh continues to operate at Permanente while developing a long-term vision for the site.”
Reasons for action
Simitian said the reason for requesting a decadelong summary of violations was to “take a more comprehensive look at this rather than just deal with these issues piecemeal.”
The environmental problems at Lehigh date back more than 80 years, even beyond the opening of the cement plant in 1939, when mining of limestone was already well established. From selenium discharges into Permanente Creek to air pollution from truck traffic carrying aggregate, the outcry has intensified in recent decades as residential homes were developed around the 3,510-acre site.
Regarding acquisition exploration, Simitian reasoned: “Rather than waiting to see what happens and letting the years go by, I thought it was time … to say, ‘Look, what’s a sensible future for this site, and can we chart that out ourselves?”
“The county should acquire the land for open space,” Fry agreed, but suggested that any talk of housing options on the land is unrealistic.
“As the site has been evaluated for Superfund several times, I would anticipate that some of the land will remain a no-man’s-land,” she said.
But Simitian is optimistic about some future use. He cited a quarry in the East Bay that has been reclaimed as recreational open space, noting the same could happen to the Lehigh quarry.
“Clearly, we’re looking to consider what the path forward might be,” he said. “We know it can be done.”
County staff is expected to report back with acquisition options by mid-May.
