Ordinance Amendment # 26 2013-2014

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Members Dane County Zoning Land Resources Committee Joe Parisi' February 25, 2014 Page 2 • Third; blasting is regulated by the State of Wisconsin: Department of Safety and Professional Services. Please"note that not -all, sites involve blasting, but -where it is involved, it is heavily regulated; • Fourth, air and water quality are regulated through the Wisconsin Department of'Natural Resources; and • Fifth, road use is regulated through federal, state, county and township road regulations. While Dane. County has attempted to foster mineral extraction over the years, the current effort to withdraw the nonconforming registration 'requirement should be faulted for several "reasons: 1: - DCAAP and all operators favor the"elimination of abandoned or depleted sites from nonconforming use status. Dane County has made no efforts to communicate with those owners of the registered sites. DCAAP is prepared to cooperate fully in identifying abandoned and depleted sites for the purpose of eliminating them from nonconforming use protection. 2. Dane County has not enacted any ordinance which would allow the notification .of neighbors of the existence of proper nonconforming mineral extraction sites. " We believe the first effort should be to provide notice to neighbors so that there are no surprises when extraction on nonconforming sites does occur. 3. The recognition of nonconforming mineral extraction sites and the Diminishing Assets rule emerged largely from Dane County. It would be a very aggressive move by Dane County to attempt to overturn decades of judicial interpretation of property rights otherwise vested with mineral extraction operators. 4. The mineral extraction -sites should be located close to their end use. -This makes for a low cost source of supply as well as minimizing road impacts. 5.. The effort to eliminate nonconforming sites will, result in -environmental damage-in.that all owners of nonconforming sites will mine those sites at least once a year in order to protect their_ property interests., Dane County had wisely for many years, allowed the registration to keep . environmental impacts to 'an absolute minimum: OX26 will reverse that trend and require increased excavation 6. Elimination of nonconforming sites and the natural consequence' of increasing - excavation activities will have the effect of increasing road usage and potential damages to those roads. 7. The amendment, if passed, is prospective and not retroactive: hUchaelbest.com 61.