I appreciate the Jan. 2 editorial (“County gravel-mining policy poses challenges”), and the Dec. 28 article by Shari Phiel (“Growing Clark County will need aggregate materials. Where should they come from?”) Anyone with just one eye on the ball knows that Clark County needs aggregate, and based on growth and maintenance estimates, a lot of it. Some would like all of us to believe that the ends justify the means and both articles lean toward that goal.
I ask you to consider Chelatchie residents, who like everyone in Clark County rely on ground water. Our wells rely on an alluvial layer that the county GIS map shows recharges from Chelatchie Bluff. Chelatchie Bluff sits directly above dozens of family homes on a critically geologically unstable mountain. Does anyone remember Oso?
The Chelatchie Bluff tributaries have recently shown recovery from decades of abuse with a documented coho run! Yet, our own county not only refuses to require a legitimate Environmental Impact Study, they have also joined with two multibillion-dollar out-of-state corporations in a court battle to block it. That is our fight, not against the need for aggregate, but to ensure that where we get that material does not destroy our way of life in the process.
