Mine Games

A Chicago-based Company Wants To Mine Clay In Hungry Valley To Make Kitty Litter. Residents Are Trying To Stop It. Here’s The Scoop.

By D. Brian Burghart

Darlene Gardipe and Diana Crutcher-Smith say that they are afraid that the environment near their homes in Hungry Valley, seven miles north of Sparks, will be destroyed by a company called the Oil-Dri Corporation of America. As they speak, the golden eagle that soars overhead illustrates the pristine nature of the valley.

“We’re not against the company, and we’re not against mining,” Gardipe says. “All we want is for Oil-Dri to answer the concerns that we have because this mine is not just going to affect us. It’s going to affect our future generations.”

Gardipe says mining in the mostly undeveloped valley could last as long as 100 years. To add insult to irony, Oil-Dri wants to mine clay to manufacture kitty litter, which the women say seems like a trivial reason to destroy their way of life.

This battle has matched an international corporation against a few local residents. When Native Americans, preservationists and homeowners went on the offensive, they began leafletting nearby neighborhoods, writing letters to government agencies including the Washoe County Commission and circulating petitions. Among Reno area businesses displaying petitions is Beneath a Wizard’s Moon at 715 Redwood Place.

Protesters have even put up an anti-kitty litter sign near Eagle Canyon Road.

These actions have all made for some interesting headlines, and because of off-stage developments within the last few days, the facility will be postponed for at least a year. The project might even be killed.

Chicago-based Oil-Dri Corporation, for its part, says its mining and processing plant would provide jobs and won’t pollute the air, water or land. Oil-Dri maintains that it will mine this land legally and responsibly.

“We never have come across this kind of opposition before,” says Kelly McGrail, director of corporate communications for Oil-Dri. “We were taken aback and caught off-guard because we have such solid relationships in the communities that we’ve operated in for the last 35 years. Frankly, we looked at it as a positive for the community, in terms of our contribution to the economic development and the new job opportunities for those in the area.”

The proposed open-pit mines could have a major impact on Hungry Valley and surrounding neighborhoods. Opponents to the proposed mine are worried about 24-hour noise, traffic, air and water pollution and a blight on the landscape. Gardipe and Crutcher-Smith are concerned about the mine because the Hungry Valley Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, where they live, shares a border with the proposed site. They are worried that trucks from the processing plant will pass down Eagle Canyon Road, where a new high school will be built.

The site also shares borders with Lemmon and Antelope valleys and crosses Pyramid Highway from the Spanish Springs developments. All told, the mine could affect thousands of homes. If the plant sends dust and chemicals into the air, as opponents say, it could deteriorate air quality in the entire Truckee Meadows area.

McGrail says that while the plant would be surrounded by residential neighborhoods, its closest neighbors aren’t very close.

“I’d point out that there really aren’t any near neighbors for this plant that we hope to build,” she says. “The nearest neighbor as far as I’ve been able to ascertain is about 2 1/2 miles away, with the exception of the people who are in Lemmon Valley, who are separated by a major range of hills. While we have operations that have near neighbors, we have very happy coexistences in those areas. But I would also put forth that I wouldn’t consider this smack-dab in the middle of a residential area.”

To combat the mining and processing plant, a coalition of Native Americans, homeowners in Lemmon and Antelope valleys, the Sierra Club, Citizen Alert and Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada have joined forces, calling themselves the Coalition Against Residential Mining. The Reno-Sparks Indian Colony has been at the forefront of the battle, which is taking place not just in the Valley but in the chamber of the Washoe County Commission and in the offices of the Bureau of Land Management, which administers the land.

“Oil-Dri keeps saying that our facts aren’t right, but why aren’t they coming out with the true facts?” Crutcher-Smith asks, “and what are the true facts? That’s why we’re asking for an Environmental Impact Statement. That’s all we’re asking for.”

Simply put, an Environmental Impact Statement is a study that describes the effects of development on the environment. The environment considered in an EIS includes land, water, air, structures, living organisms, environmental values at the site and the social, cultural and economic aspects of development.

It turns out that Crutcher-Smith is going to get her wish for an EIS. So says John Singlaub, field office manager for the BLM.

“There really are two criteria for making a determination on whether you should do an Environmental Impact Statement,” says Singlaub. “One is simply looking at what the potential impacts could be. The other is the level of public controversy involved. Because this project has become so controversial, we’ve just made the determination that an Environmental Impact Statement is the way go.”

Singlaub says the BLM has received more than 2,200 cards and letters opposing the project.

“That’s a good indication that there’s some concern out there,” he says.

Kitty Litter Is Big Business
Oil-Dri wants to strip mine clay on 5,907 acres in Hungry Valley. The company purchased mineral rights to the land in 1997, according to Oil-Dri’s annual report to the Security and Exchange Commission. Oil-Dri already owns 598 acres near Silver City. In the SEC document, the company claims that between the two locations, there are more than 306 million tons of proven clay and more than 250 million tons in probable reserves. At 557 million tons, the Nevada clay makes up more than half of the company’s 890 million ton total.

That huge percentage of clay means the stakes in Nevada are very high for Oil-Dri.

Oil-Dri is the world’s largest producer of sorbent minerals, which are used to manufacture products like Cat’s Pride Premium Cat Litter and other cat litters, All Purpose Floor Absorbent and Oil-Dri Lite for industrial cleanup.

The company has had mining operations in Ripley, Miss., since 1963, in Ochlocknee, Ga., since 1971, in Christmas Valley, Ore., since 1979, in Blue Mountain, Miss., since 1989, and in Mounds, Ill., since 1998.

In Hungry Valley, Oil-Dri intends to dig a series of three- to four-acre pits, which, according to company literature, after mining, will be refilled and restored to nearly original condition. Oil-Dri has won reclamation awards from the Oregon Department of Geology and and Mineral Industries. If allowed to mine, the company would dig up to six acres the first year and, eventually, up to 10 acres annually.

Oil-Dri’s pollution record is fairly clean, according to a recent Toxic Release Inventory by the Environmental Protection Agency, which was compiled by the Environmental Defense Fund. At the Ripley, Miss., plant, low levels of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides and medium-high levels of PM-10 (particulate matter of 10 microns or less) and sulfur dioxide (which contributes to acid rain and respiratory problems) were reported.

“There are some air emissions, all of which fall under requirements from the EPA, state, local and county regulations,” says McGrail. “We are well below any and all emission levels as put forth by those agencies.”

McGrail says that processing clay requires drying it.

“When it’s dried, steam is emitted into the air, and that steam does have some small particulate content, which is analyzed and regulated,” she says.

It’s that sort of pollution that has opponents of the processing plant crying foul. The plant would be built on private property owned by Oil-Dri adjacent to the BLM land. Many are especially concerned about the sulfur dioxide, which is said to have a rotten-egg odor.

“I talked to Oil-Dri about that when the sulfur-dioxide questions were raised,” says the BLM’s Singlaub. “The explanation was that [at some plants] they need to heat the material up to around 1,100 degrees, and at that point, it does emit sulfur dioxide. Here, their proposal is only to heat it to 300 degrees. They also say that there’s no sulfur in the material to begin with.”

Singlaub says that assessing whether the emissions are dangerous will lie with the Washoe County Health Department.

The Kitty Litter Scoop
Washoe County Commissioner Pete Sferrazza says that when the commission voted to allow Oil-Dri to apply for $1.5 million in loans back in April, it was not an endorsement of the project.

“The only thing that happened was an application was presented to the county for an allocation of tax-exempt financing,” he says. “All the county did was prioritize this project, and one other, for that financing. [We did it] specifically with the understanding that that did not support this project. If this project is ultimately approved, it would be eligible for some tax-exempt financing.”

The state also committed $7 million in low-interest loans.

However, because of documents Oil-Dri had to file with the BLM before asking for the financing, the company missed the deadline.

“It may be that because of the timing of the project and the duration of all the permitting processes that we might have to resubmit for those,” McGrail says. “There’s a limited amount of time that the state and the county have open their window of opportunity to say, ‘Yes, we endorse, or no, we don’t,’ but we would have to have things in place in order for them to make that decision.”

At the September meeting of the County Commission, commissioners voted to request the BLM require an EIS, as opposed to a Environmental Assessment, a similar but less-detailed document. Sferrazza says he hasn’t got an opinion about the overall possibility that Hungry Valley will get a kitty litter plant.

“Everyone on the County Commission is in a tight situation in terms of discussing projects ahead of time,” Sferrazza says. “We cannot approve or disapprove of a project without a hearing. I requested an EIS because I think it will have significant impact on the adjoining properties. I want to make sure whether those can be mitigated before I make a final decision.”

The Next Step
Oil-Dri submitted its locatability study to the BLM last week, according to Singlaub. A locatability study shows why the company thinks minerals, in this case, a certain kind of clay, are where they say they are. It’s a provision of Nevada’s 1872 mining law.

“That’s the first decision that we have to make,” Singlaub says. “We are now reviewing that, and we’ve got 60 days to make a determination as to locatability. If the mining claims are valid, then my responsibility under the law is to make sure that their mining operation does not result in ‘undue and unnecessary degradation.’ And so we would go through a National Environmental Policy Act review, which in this case, because of the level of controversy, would be an Environmental Impact Statement.”

Singlaub says preparing an EIS could take up to a year.

Critics of Environmental Impact Statements say that the in-depth reviews are only done to postpone projects. They point to examples like the proposed United States Postal Service cargo hub in Reno, which was put on hold this year when the Airport Authority voted Sept. 9 for an EIS. However, Adam Mayberry, community relations manager for the Airport Authority, says he is uncertain whether the United States Postal Service actually is going to conduct an EIS. The USPS is currently preparing an Environmental Assessment, which Mayberry said will be made public in the next few weeks.

Still, Christopher Exline, a University of Nevada, Reno, professor of geography who specializes in land use and urban and regional planning, says that the EIS was designed to give locals a say in how their land is developed.

“One of the things that struck me about the Washoe County Commission meeting was a statement that people use certain environmental regulations just to stall a project,” he says. “It struck me as a real interesting position for a public official to take. If you look at the way mining laws have been interpreted, local control was vested largely in requirements for environmental investigation—like impact statements. That’s the way that local entities have really had a lot of say in development.”

Singlaub says that once the BLM makes a decision about the locatability of the clay, probably about the end of December, the local agencies that are involved in different aspects of the process—Washoe County Commission and the county Planning Commission and Health Department—will work together on the EIS so that the approval or disapproval process won’t take any longer than necessary.

“We’ve talked to planning at Washoe County, and they’ve agreed to do a concurrent process, and to use our EIS to look at their concerns,” says Singlaub. “We expect to do the same with the Washoe County Health Department, who will be looking at water quality and air quality issues over there. We’ll have a single process instead of a sequential one.”

Back at the Hungry Valley Indian Colony near Spanish Springs, a housing development with fewer than 200 homes, which was founded in 1986 when Native Americans were pushed out of the Reno colony off Mill Street because of urban development, the news that the BLM will require an EIS is very good.

“That’s wonderful—they’ve been dragging their feet for so long,” says Darlene Gardipe of the Paiute-Shoshone tribe at the news. “I think it’s great. Now we’ll know the long-term effects on the environment.”