The Koochiching County Board is expected to revisit the zoning issue of Gerald Albrecht’s rock quarry at its meeting 10 a.m. Tuesday.
Albrecht applied on Sept. 12 for a conditional use permit to haul rock and set up a crusher on one acre of his 160-acre parcel of land a half mile southwest of Margie. As of Nov. 7, Albrecht had blasted because the site is less than an acre and a permit is not needed, but he had not crushed rock at the site, said Richard Lehtinen, environmental services director.
Dawn Eve, of Margie, said that illegal blasting was done at the site and that it has done damage to the buildings of Margie. She questions the motives of Albrecht, and said that he blasted without notifying anybody residing close to the quarry.
The Northome City Council stated in a letter to the county board that it supports Albrecht’s development of a rock quarry. It believes the rock quarry would be a solution to having only two main gravel pits that service the southern part of the county, as both pits are limited in the amount of rock they can supply, it said in the letter.
Albrecht was ordered to cease and desist the operation on Oct. 23 because the acreage was listed as zone R-1, or low-density residential.
Albrecht applied for a rezoning permit on Oct. 25.
The board denied without prejudice Albrecht’s permit application for a mining operation on the property at its Nov. 7 meeting. It sent the permit application back to a Dec. 14 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for further consideration.
Albrecht proposed at the Dec. 14 meeting to rezone 10 acres of the 160-acre parcel from R-1 to M-1, or from a residential to a manufacturing zone, in order to start a new mining operation consisting of the 1-acre rock quarry and the set-up of a crusher. He proposed to rezone the remaining 150-acres from R-1 to AF-1, or agriculture and forestry. The planning commission passed the proposed rezoning in a 6-3 vote, sending the application back to the county board.
The rock quarry issue has caused more calls and letters to Commissioner Mike Hanson than any issue to come before the board in his tenure on the county board, Hanson said. The acres involved in the permit are located in the region of the county represented by Hanson.
Hanson said that he is “classically caught” in the middle of the issue. Although a majority of Margie residents are against it, he has received a number of calls and letters in support of the rock quarry, he said.
Other sites for a rock quarry have been looked at in the county, but they are difficult to find, he said.