Rock Crusher Takes Step Toward Opening

Earlier this week Spokane Rock Products, an Airways Heights, Wash., facility, made progress on building and operating an asphalt mixing facility in the Spokane, Wash., area when a Washington regional agency ruled against Spokane County. According to local reports, the Eastern Washington Growth Management Hearings Board ruled that that Spokane County failed to uniformly apply its own criteria for mining uses in implementing the change on the company's site.

The county has been attempting to change the land use for the site from mining to low-density residential.

The board ordered the county to reconsider the change, and gave Spokane County 180 days to reconsider the issue.

Meanwhile, Steve Robinson, vice president of Spokane Rock Products, says that the company will go ahead with site development in anticipation of winning the appeals case.

According to Robinson, if the hearing finds in favor of Spokane the company hopes to have the operation up and running by the end of the first quarter of next year. The facility is expected to be able to process around 150,000 tons of asphalt and concrete annually.

Some of the concerns that residents typically have against facilities such as Spokane Rock Products include noise, pollution, dust, and truck traffic.

According to an article in the Spokane Review, earlier this year the the county refused to issue a building permit for the asphalt plant after county commissioners downzoned the property in line with the rewritten comprehensive plan.

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Last spring, the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority issued a permit allowing the company to produce asphalt if the operation includes air pollution controls such as a bag house and an enclosed loading shed.