The Members

Citizens Advocating for Roblar Rural Quality / Citizens Against Roblar Rock Quarry (CARRQ), a non-profit 501(c), is a citizen’s group working to preserve the rural quality of west Sonoma County by opposing the County’s development of a rock quarry and asphalt recycling operation on Roblar Road.  CARRQ has worked for more than 20 years to oppose rock quarry projects next to the closed toxic landfill on Roblar Road.

We are made up of roughly 200 members with an Executive Board of 11 members.

Board Members:  Sue Buxton (President), Edward Ryska (Vice President), Jacqueline McMahon (Secretary), David Spilman (Treasurer), Jason Merrick, Shirley Grant, Margaret Hanley, Bill Krinard, Donna Norton, Arthur J. Slater, Donna Spilman

Web Administrator:  Justin Merrick

The Past

In the late 1980’s a group of concerned citizens from Roblar and Mecham Roads, many of whom had children at Dunham School, formed an advocacy group opposed to a proposed gravel mine on Roblar Road.  Knowing very little of CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) regulations and Environmental Impact Reports, they successfully defeated proposals for two separate quarry projects before the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.  The group consisted of Ed Ryska, Richard Davis, Corey and Gerri Merrick, Robin and Berry Wienzveg, Bob and Elaine Carlson, Bill Maynard, Bill Taber, and many others from the community.  CARRQ’s original name, Citizens Against Roblar Rock Quarry, was coined by Corey Merrick. In 2009 CARRQ changed it’s name to Citizens Advocating for Roblar Rural Quality to broaden its issue advocacy and to look beyond the proposed quarry to the future of more responsible land use in the West County.

The fight against the first quarry proposal lasted seven years and in the end, CARRQ was able to defeat the project.  But they knew it would not be a lasting victory and that the quarry would most likely raise its ugly head again if a new applicant proposed a project to the County Planning staff. And of course, it has done just that.

When looking back at the issues that surrounded the insane and environmentally deadly proposal of placing a quarry next to a toxic land fill site, many cringe. A rock quarry using dynamite blasting, most likely disturbing a very fragile toxic land fill site, would leach toxins into an already fragile underground water aquifer resulting in permanent and irreparable contamination.  The issues have not changed and they remain a concern for citizens who oppose the County’s current efforts to allow a quarry operation next to the land fill.

Residents have long faced another reality of truck traffic travelling at high speeds on Roblar Road. Opposition to earlier quarry proposals centered on how this truck traffic would not only disturb school children during their studies but also endanger their safety.  During the time period an 18-wheel rock truck was traveling west bound on Roblar Road approaching Orchard Station Road when it struck and killed two horses loose on the road due to the heavy fog that prevented the driver from seeing them.  If the horses that were killed weren’t reality enough, the driver swerved while trying to miss the horses and slammed into a children’s bus stop ten minutes before their arrival.  If the truck had been there a little later and the children were present, they most likely would have been killed, too.  In this time period the Merrick’s daughter was run off the road into the ditch by a rock truck. 

The Present

The newest opposition to a permit to mine gravel on Roblar Road began in 2003, when local residents learned that John Barella, owner of North Bay Construction, had purchased the quarry site and intended to pursue an application to quarry rock and recycle asphalt. Since then, CARRQ has been following the permit process and informing county residents of the environmental and health risks associated with this project.   We have made public the issue of how the County used taxpayer dollars to pay John Barella $2.3 million to place hundreds of ranchland acres surrounding the quarry site into the Open Space District, and then recommend that he be allowed to run hundreds of gravel trucks per day over the preserved land –a cheaper alternative than improving Roblar Road to handle the truck traffic.

The new proposal says only truck drivers under contract to the applicant will remove gravel from the site and that they will be restricted to using this alternative route to and from the proposed quarry.  There is no guarantee that this will be an absolute and there is no enforcement or monitoring policy that ensures this. Years ago when the horses were killed, bus stop destroyed, and little girl run off the road, rock trucks were barred from traveling on Roblar Road while transporting aggregate from Bodega Bay, but that did not stop the drivers.  Why should they abide by the rules now?

We have held community meetings, raised money to pay consultant fees to write expert reports regarding the environmental risks of the project, and spoken at Planning Commission and City Council meetings. We have met with supervisors and state and local officials to advocate against the quarry project.  We continue to ask the County to adequately look at all the issues that this project brings up, particularly the risks to local water and air quality.

CARRQ filed a Public Records Request with the County in December of 2009 to obtain documents pertaining to the quarry application.  We filed a lawsuit in April 2010 when the County refused to produce more than 50 documents because County Counsel said "it was not in the best interests of the public to release them.”  A decision on this suit is expected in July.

Recently, evidence of California Tiger Salamanders was found on the project site.  These are endangered animals found only in Sonoma County and Santa Barbara.  CARRQ is working to understand how this discovery will impact the application process.  The County staff has delayed bringing the quarry project to the Board of Supervisors pending more study of the salamander issue.

What’s Next

CARRQ expects the Board of Supervisors to begin discussion of the quarry and asphalt recycling application in the August-September 2010 timeframe.  We have a lot of work to do to educate the supervisors on the issues surrounding the development of a quarry on this site and to incite more public opposition to the quarry.

Our community already bears the cumulative impacts of the Meacham Road landfill, the Roblar landfill, the Stony Point Quarry and the Llano Water treatment plant all within a 3.5 mile radius.  This is more than enough for this rural area.  The possibilities of air and water contaminants infiltrating neighboring regions and the environmental devastation that this mining project poses are too big a burden to add.