County places gravel pit proposal on hold

By Meg Olson

A proposal to reactivate the Province Road gravel pit is on hold at the county waiting for a revised plan from applicant and property owner Jason McDougall.

On June 29, Whatcom County Planning and Development Service issued a Notice of Additional Requirements (NOAR), giving McDougall and his team 180 days to submit a new site plan and environmental checklist. The applicant is also being asked to “explain the apparent discrepancies” between the current submitted project description and the revised proposal. If there are significant changes, the applicant will again need to send notices to properties within 1,000 feet of property.

McDougall said his consultants were working to prepare the required documents for the new proposal, which he said would address some of the concerns raised at a June 14 meeting of the Point Roberts Community Advisory Committee. “I wouldn’t have stood there for two hours answering questions if I wasn’t going to do that,” he said.

Discussing the NOAR at the July 12 PRCAC meeting, committee chair Joel Lantz said, “If you look at it, it’s almost like a brand new permit.” He added he had been in correspondence with McDougall, who said they no longer planned to be “rolling any trucks during the summer,” and that the proponent would forward the revised plans to the committee when they became available.

Lantz also spoke on the disparity between the number of comments the county had received on the conditional use application for the project – four – and the apparent level of community concern. “Come on, folks, if you have concerns you need to submit comments,” he said.

Committee member Keith Glading said he expected more comments would be forthcoming if the project is clarified in the new submittals.

“A lot of us are not wanting to make comments if we don’t know what we’re really commenting about,” he said.