Economy

After Being Voted Down, Liberty Quarry Resurrected In Riverside

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published November 6, 2012 at 1:32 AM PST

This story was published more than 12 years ago.

After Being Voted Down, Liberty Quarry Resurrected In Riverside

A vote today could fast track approval of a controversial new rock quarry in Riverside County. Much of the rock and gravel from the Liberty Quarry could end up coming to San Diego construction sites.

The Liberty Quarry site is just north of the San Diego County line in Riverside, west of Interstate 15.

Riverside Supervisors rejected the plan earlier this year, saying it would create dust, noise and traffic, ruin the tourism industry around rural Temecula and violate a Pechanga Band sacred site.

But now the Riverside County Board has scheduled a vote for this morning that could overturn that decision and fast track approval of the project.

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Granite Construction Company has modified its proposal to mine 4 million tons of gravel and rock a year instead of 5 million tons. The mine would stay open 50 years instead of 75. And Riverside County would be paid a fee based on the amount of rock mined.

One of the five supervisors, John Tavaglione, has changed his vote based on these changes. He is running for Congress in this week’s election, which observers speculate may be the reason for the move to fast track the project. Granite first proposed it in 2005.

San Diego supervisors have remained silent on the issue. Construction projects in San Diego face trucking in material long distance, since the number of rock quarries still operating in San Diego County has fallen dramatically over the past three decades.

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.