A Placitas group is concerned that a sand and gravel company is preparing to operate an asphalt plant near residential property, something they say could bring unwelcome dust, noise and pollution.
Eastern Sandoval Citizens Association President Bob Gorrell raised those concerns at a recent Sandoval County Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, asking the county to stop the company from operating an asphalt plant at a location just southeast of the Interstate 25 and N.M. 165 intersection.
Sandoval County has permitted Fisher Sand and Gravel to do “terrain management” and grading to level ground at the site, but equipment that county staff recently observed on the site was not consistent with that use, county spokesman Sidney Hill said.
Fisher Sand and Gravel vice president Mike Moehn told the Journal this week that the company is using its Placitas-area facility as a temporary staging area for asphalt equipment.
Moehn said the company has no intention of operating an asphalt plant at the Placitas site.
“We are in the process of moving the plant over to eastern New Mexico for a highway job,” Moehn said. “It’s just parked there until we can move it to the right site. That’s just an interim staging area.”
Fisher Sand and Gravel plans to use it for a job on Interstate 40 near Tucumcari.
Hill said it is a violation of the county zoning ordinance for Fisher to have asphalt-making equipment on the site, even temporarily.
“The county has determined that Fisher is in violation of existing zoning ordinances for that location because it has equipment and material that appear to be consistent with an asphalt-making operation on the premises. Therefore, the county will inform Fisher that it has 30 days to bring the site into compliance,” Hill said in an email.
He said the county has never approved an asphalt-making operation on that site, and there is no application for such an operation before the Planning and Zoning Commission or the County Commission.
Placitas residents raised similar concerns in 2010 when Fisher applied to the county for a temporary zoning request to allow a portable asphalt plant and sand and gravel screening operation near the southeast corner of the intersection of Interstate 25 and N.M. 165.
The company subsequently withdrew its request.
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