County Delays Quarry Expansion Decision : Moorpark: Opponents are frustrated that environmental impact revisions will postpone action on the proposal.

Ventura County officials on Wednesday delayed for several months a decision on the proposed expansion of a quarry north of Moorpark, which is strongly opposed by the city, environmentalists and neighboring residents.

The county’s Environmental Report Review Committee decided that a draft environmental report on the proposed expansion of the Blue Star Ready Mix Inc. quarry requires revisions substantial enough to warrant a new public hearing.

The time required for the revisions and for the minimum 45-day public-review period will delay a decision on the project for three to six months, county planners said.

Blue Star, about three miles north of Moorpark at 9035 Happy Camp Road, wants to expand its gravel quarry by 249 acres and add an asphalt mixer to its concrete-mixing operations.

The company is also applying for an unprecedented 50-year operating permit, said Todd Collart, a county planner. Most quarries in the county have permits of 10 to 20 years, he said.

Moorpark, the Ventura County Environmental Coalition, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and neighbors of the quarry had recommended that the report be revised. But the groups are frustrated that the revisions will further delay a decision on the expansion, which was first proposed five years ago.

These groups had said the environmental report did not adequately describe how the project would affect traffic, noise levels and air quality. The coalition has said that an expanded quarry would harm wildlife at Happy Camp Regional Park, just east of the Blue Star site.

Opponents also complain that Blue Star has been operating without a permit since 1986. But Blue Star says it applied for a permit before its original 10-year permit expired, only to be told by the county that its application was incomplete.

Blue Star President James Sandoval said the county decided it could not approve a new application until the company’s plans to expand the quarry had been examined. And that process already has taken five years.

Indeed, some residents agree that the county is to blame for the delay.

“It sounds typical for the county,” said Pat Schleve, who lives near the Blue Star site. “Just another delay, and in the meantime they allow Blue Star to operate unregulated and uncontrolled. I think they need to address the issues facing our community now.”

Schleve and her husband, Tom, sued the county last year over allowing the company to continue operations. A Ventura County Superior Court judge ruled against the Schleves, who are appealing the decision.

Roseanne Mikos, a spokeswoman for the environmental coalition, agreed that the delay “shouldn’t have had to happen.”

The Schleves and others maintain that Blue Star already has expanded its quarry beyond the limits of its previous permit. Therefore, they argue that the county should be especially strict in setting the terms of any new expansion.

Traffic near the Blue Star site has been a major issue of opponents, who are especially concerned that the company has asked for a maximum of 1,200 truck trips under the new permit.

Moorpark officials have complained about Blue Star trucks barreling through the city’s downtown. They say traffic noise along Moorpark Avenue, an extension of California 23, already exceeds legal limits and have called for the county to restrict the hours that Blue Star trucks can travel through town.

Truck trips to and from the Happy Camp Road site now number up to 760 a day, Sandoval said. But he said the 1976 permit set no limit on truck trips from the quarry.

The company’s application for a new permit includes proposed alternative routes, including one that would cut through Happy Camp Regional Park.

Environmentalists are opposed to a road going through the park, saying such a use would violate the terms under which the state ceded the parkland to the county.

Any alternative truck routes would take years to build, Sandoval said, but he added that it would be illegal to limit truck travel through Moorpark in the meantime.

“It’s unfortunate that Highway 23 goes right through Moorpark,” Sandoval said. “But it’s a state highway. It would be unconstitutional to limit one user.”