Mountain Democrat (Newspaper) - January 17, 2000, Placerville, California See below Home trashed by garbage truck Sports El Dorado upsets Trojans Foothill Don't miss Gold Discovery Day MONDAY JANUARY 17, 2000 Vol 149 No 9-20 Pages 2 Sections 3 Supplements publication once 4- -i M c I 1 E i I j i r t 500 includes tax County in deep hole over rock mining policy Review of plans lagging State board blasts local officials By LEE ZION Staff writer FOLSOM State mining censured El Dorado saying the county did a bad job in overseeing mining businesses But despite earlier objections by county tives that they weren't being they didn't show up to defend Bob chairman of the State Mining and Geology voted Thursday evening with his fellow board members in censuring the county for its alleged failure to comply with state law in local mining The unanimous decision also set up a possible hearing to be set later this in which the county's ability to govern local mining could be Earlier in the the county tried unsuccessfully in court to have Grunwald taken off the for previous statements he made which county officials said showed bias against the see page By MOLLY RHODES Staff writer Rather than drop a one-year review of two Sierra Rock mining reclamation the El Dorado County Planning Commission requested that the review be scheduled for a public hearing as soon as The Planning Department staff had requested the review be put off because its original intent a voluntary review to try to resolve differences with the state Department of Conservation could not be met when DOC was unwilling to discuss able changes to the 1997 The planning staff and Richard made conflicting ments about who was actually responsible for the stalled yet neither argument negated the fact that a review that was suppose to be done had not been said Planning Commission Chairman Alan Tol the past I've been see page Station close to reality Facility construction set to begin soon By ROB COLE Staff writer After a decade's worth of sions and the city of Placerville's desires to establish a primary public and private transit station is finally Plans for the project passed some hurdles last at the City Council where drawings of the new park and bus facility on Mosquito Road were unveiled by the Department of Public Works Director Jeff has been as tough a project PLACERVILLE STATION is shown In this artist's The transit hub will be located at Mosquito Road and Clay to put together as I have ever been a part said a former neer for the California Department of on has been a fight to gain environmental clearances and right of ways ting the money for the project has been the easy The which should be ready for use by June 2001, is scheduled to be built on a 1.22-acre site at the corner of Mosquito Road and Clay The property was recently purchased and is currently owned by the El Dorado Irrigation District with the exception of a small portion of the site which EID has in The city plans to complete a right of way contract and purchase ment for the site with EID sometime within the next once it is out of When the facility will be used primarily as a transit station for the El Dorado Transit but will likely also host other public and private busing services such as Amtrak or The building is planned to include a covered see page Missouri Flat Road Wal-Mart store still on hold By ERICA BROOKS Staff writer Two years after the El Dorado County Planning Commission approved letting Wal-Mart build a store on Missouri Flat the giant retailer still waits for the The planned store at the corner of Missouri Flat and Forni Roads remains on mired in the logistics surrounding the county's planned developments in that number of things need to be before construction proceeds on the Placerville said County Planning Director Conrad The Planning Commission approved three major retail developments for the Missouri Flat area in including El Dorado and Sundance a shopping center planned behind Prospector Plaza at Highway 50 and Missouri Flat the Sundance project waits for approval from the Army Corps of and the other ments wait for Because of Measure which requires developers to offset the cost of road capacity improvements made necessary by their the new must shoulder the cost of millions of dollars in The county has planned an estimated million in including widening and realigning the Missouri Flat freeway overpass and interchange and building a bypass from about China Garden Road to Pleasant Valley Road near the Busy Spot Without the smaller including simply do not have the money to satisfy that requirement cannot proceed until the Army Corps of Engineers approves a parking lot that will pave over approximately 5 acres of on hold waiting for a response the said Bob project director of Roebbelen Land the developers behind the Sundance There is no statutory or regulatory time limit for them to The corps did not respond to messages left on its answering Until the corps gives Sundance its the project sits in the planning and all Wal-Mart developers can do is wait and are waiting That's all 1 can said can't force the Will the standstill ever certainly said been working on for 10 and it hasn't happened the Western Slope of El Dorado County has only one large retail store Kmart's Big K also located on Missouri Flat Dorado County is a great location for a said Greg a Wal-Mart in a telephone and despite the he remains a hopeful he do think it's going to happen Wal-Mart would really like to be in that Dorado Runaway dump truck crashes into home By ELIZABETH BUCCERI Staff writer CAMERON PARK Mike Salata awoke early Friday morning to a crash so loud it practically knocked him out of He found the crash was the sound of a runaway dump truck plowing into the living room ot his La Crescenta Drive damaging his furniture and knocking the roof of his carport down onto his 1987 Ford knew my truck was and my new ture was said His Tiona 17, said she got an early wake-up call as but she thought the sound was coming from below her woke up to a big It felt like an she ran and got my sister and went downstairs because I knew something wasn't confusion was soon erased after she ran outside to investigate and discovered the parked dump truck in her neighbor's driveway and saw the driver across the street trying to figure out see page a Democrat photo by Linda Todd WAKE-UP CALL Onlookers view the damage after a dump truck plowed Into the Cameron Park home of Mike i Friday carport State eyes ban on serpentine road paving County already has restrictions By MOLLY RHODES Staff writer El Dorado County residents could no longer be able to use serpentine aggregate to cover their unpaved roads if a proposed change to the state's airborne toxic control measure for naturally ring asbestos becomes According to wording of the draft person shall use or apply serpentine or serpentine material for surfacing in The California Air Resources Board will hold a public meeting on its draft airborne toxic control measure for naturally ring asbestos from to 4 p.m. Feb. 4, in the lower level board hearing room at 2020 Street in The draft measure also covers proposals to limit dust from construction and mining The California Air Resources Board announced the draft changes to the asbestos measure last If it chooses to adopt the draft measure as its final El Dorado County would have four months to fully enforce the Chrysotile asbestos can be found in certain strains of serpentine The exact amount of exposure needed to pose any serious health risk has not been Tremolite asbestos largely accepted as one of the see page More asbestos found in ED Hills No public health say county health officials By MOLLY RHODES Staff writer Asbestos has been officially identified in at least 19 rock samples in El Dorado including not only at the preliminary test site along Drive but also along Harvard Both sites are in or around Oak Ridge formally Seven Oaks east of El Dorado Hills Boulevard and within 200 yards of the El Dorado Hills Community Service While county officials had not been aware of the tests along Harvard Way until the California Air Resources Board released the results for both sites late on great danger is reassured the county Health Officer Stephen Drogin in a public advisory released on following the simple precaution of not making any more contact with the dirt than is absolutely necessary can markedly reduce or nate the advisory Precautions have already been taken at the Drive including putting a tarp over the open dirt piles and a fence around the The asbestos found along Harvard Way was not in open dirt but in a vein in a dirt and rock bank by the side of the where no construction is currently taking place to further disturb the ARB conducted the official test sampling after tremolite asbestos a known carcinogen was dis- covered at a home construction site along Drive last Of the seven samples taken along one was 96.5 percent tremolite Of the 19 samples taken along Harvard one see
