Gravel Mine proponents take different approach

20 05 2007

er-gravel-ad480.jpg

I found the full page color advertisement on page 5E of the Sunday Enterprise Record quite interesting.

It lists a number of environmental reasons why the M&T Baldwin Gravel mine would be a good thing, not the least of which is the reduction of the number of truck miles traveled in Butte County due to trucking in building gravel from outside the county, and the reduction in gasoline burned and GHG’s avoided helping “Global Warming”.

And then there’s the angle that this mine pit will fill with water, and create an animal habitat just like the Teichert Ponds have done when it was used as a borrow pit to construct Highway 99 overpasses. There we have a clear example of how a lowly gravel mine got turned into a nature habitat, and there was no help or “kickstart” to nature as the M&T operators are proposing for their pits destined to be ponds.

teichert_ponds.jpg

It will be interesting to see how opponents argue against the project with these environmental assets it offers.

Here’s how Chico Creek Nature Center described the Teichert Ponds for a walking tour they sponsored of them:

Read the rest of this entry »