On Tuesday, the Douglas County Planning Commission voted 4-3 against a special use permit requested by the Douglas County Sewer Improvement District, (DCSID).
Mike Bradford, the chairman of DCSID, says the permit would have allowed for an open mining operation used for the removal of aggregate and other materials.
“The proposal is to sell the aggregate that is removed from those reservoirs in order to pay for their construction otherwise they cannot be built without significant increases to the rate payers at Lake Tahoe," says Bradford.
DCSID proposed the plan to the Douglas County planning commission, who also heard from 88 members from the public.
50 of them spoke for the mining operation and 38 spoke against it.
Shele Pandl spoke on behalf of the opposition, and like many others, a fear of her's was that the project operations would cause noise problems and air quality issues.
“We are simply trying to get them to do what they need to do in order to make the existing pond useable so that nobody has to suffer," says Pandl.
The Douglas County Planning Commission will now submit its decision to the board of commissioners.
In January the board will have the final say about what to do with this project proposal.
