Irwindale Municipal Code Art. XIII Mitigation of Negative

As a charter city, the City has the authority to enact legislation in the areas of its municipal affairs, including zoning and land use regulations, business regulations, taxes and fees relating to municipal finance, and the provision of municipal services including sewer, water, fire, police, public works, and similar services. This Article is not intended to interfere with any subject matter of statewide concern and is preemptive only of matters which are municipal affairs, and shall be so construed. The City, through the general plan process, is enabled to develop programs and plans to incorporate the policies expressed in this Article.

As used in this Article, the term mining and processing includes excavation, quarrying, rock crushing, and processing of sand, rock, gravel, minerals, and soil, whether such material is natural, excavated, imported, exported, removed, relocated, treated, or otherwise dealt with in any manner, including any sand, gravel, rock, minerals, or soil imported and processed or treated upon, from, to, on, in, or about any property in the City. The term also includes the reclamation of any sites devoted to the foregoing processes.

Mining and processing operations, which have occurred and are presently continuing, which cover 83 percent of the non-publicly-owned land area of the City, impose severe negative environmental impacts upon City residents, businesses, properties, and visitors. These impacts include, but are not limited to, degradation of air quality; deterioration of streets and other public infrastructure facilities due to heavy truck traffic; public health and safety hazards caused by access routes, traffic volumes, and usage conflicts; increased noise; danger of slope failure and erosion due to exposure of uncemented granular earth materials; land subsidence; aesthetic and safety concerns related to security fencing and other barriers; health hazards created by disruption and contamination of ground water aquifers and increased airborne particulates; residual hazards to public health and safety; loss of developable property for alternative land uses; decreased property values; and a decline of aesthetic characteristics in the City as a whole.

The City has complete authority to regulate the mitigation of negative environmental impacts imposed on the City by mining and processing operations. To this end, the City may establish and enforce comprehensive regulations relating to mining and processing operations, establishment of new mines, expansion of existing mines, closure of mines, and all environmental impacts associated with the establishment, operation, maintenance, expansion, continuance, and discontinuance of mining and processing activities. These regulations may include measured dealing with mineral resource management, financial assurance and security, reclamation of property, nonconforming use rights, abandonment of use, contaminants and mining waste, drainage, erosion control, slope stability, depth of excavation, access, traffic, dust control and emissions, duration of use, health hazards, inspection, enforcement, penalties, and other related matters necessary to alleviate the impacts described above.

The foregoing regulations may be established through the general plan, including the conservation and land use elements, and any zoning, specific plans, or development agreements established pursuant thereto, and any ordinances or programs adopted by the City Council to effectuate the provisions of this Article and the General Plan. These regulations shall balance mineral values against alternative land uses, as provided in state law, and to this end can develop financial data to evaluate the mineral value.

The City may also establish and impose mitigation fees payable by owners and operators of mining and processing operations to reimburse the City for costs incurred in connection with such operations, including but not limited to the costs of studying, quantifying, analyzing, and correcting negative environmental impacts, repairing and improving streets and other public infrastructure facilities, cleaning and removing sand, gravel, and particulate debris from public rights-of-way and properties, implementing slope stability and erosion control measures for safety purposes, establishing fencing and other barriers for security and safety, mitigating water quality impacts, and funding mine closure studies and activities, such that any mines which are closed will be converted into property which us useable and developable for commercial, industrial, residential, or recreational uses.

State law recognizes that local agencies play a critical role in the regulation of mining and processing operations, and protects and enhances that role. State law establishes priorities for the expenditure of funds in connection with mining regulation, including protection of public health and safety and the environment from the adverse environmental effects of past mining practices, protection of property in danger from mining practices, and restoration of land and water resources previously degraded from the adverse effects of mining practices. The City hereby establishes the same priorities.

It is the City's ultimate goal that the mining and processing operations are so conducted as to be a good neighbor to persons residing or working in the City and that at such time as a mining or processing use is discontinued, the property be restored to a useable condition which is readily adaptable to alternate land uses and will create no danger to public health or safety. The City of Irwindale cannot ultimately be a successful community unless the 83 percent of its non-publicly-owned land area that has been and is presently devoted to mining and processing operations is making a positive contribution to the community as provided for under this Article.