Neighbors of the Moab Business Park at 11850 South U.S. 191 got a big surprise a couple of months ago when the park’s owner, Kevin Carroll, broke ground on a new project – he started digging a gravel pit right behind a number of homes and upwind of many more.

Lannie Yeager lives on Rio Grande Drive, about a hundred feet from the pit. He knew when he bought his property that adjacent land was zoned for agricultural or business use, but he hadn’t anticipated a gravel pit.

“Most people wouldn’t think agriculture means a gravel pit,” Yeager said. “They think farm animals, farm land.”

That’s an ongoing problem for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality, according to Jay Morris, the DAQ’s minor source compliance section manager. “We do catch quite a bit of flak when counties zone, and do, put a business park or an industrial park next to residential areas.”

However, zoning issues aren’t under the DAQ’s purview. The agency does issue permits for gravel pits beyond a certain scale, but Carroll’s pit hasn’t reached that threshold. So long as he is only sorting gravel, not crushing rock, he doesn’t need a state permit for the pit.

Still, the pit is subject to regulations limiting the amount of fugitive dust a gravel pit can emit, and Morris said the DAQ is monitoring those levels. “All of our inspectors are aware of it, and we have someone in the area twice a month. Hopefully we can catch him running in the next little while, and figure out a way to at least talk to him,” Morris said.

So far, that’s been an elusive goal. Not only did Moab Business Park representatives turn down repeated requests to discuss the pit for this story, Carroll has not responded to the DAQ’s contacts, even through San Juan County officials.

“We’ve also contacted San Juan County, and they had no idea this was going on, so they’re looking into it as well,” Morris said. “They were going to call us back as soon as they were able to get a hold of him and get more information. That was the 8th of July.”

In the meantime, DAQ monitors continue to check on the site. If the air around the pit should exceed 20 percent opacity, a measure of how much light is blocked by particulate matter in the air, then the agency would be able to take stronger measures, Morris said.

“We would like to chat with [Carroll], and especially educate him as far as to what the rules are for small sources like that,” Morris said. “If we can make observations that exceed 20 percent opacity, he would be written up. If he’s not responsive to that, we’ve got the attorney general that can help us. They always seem to have a little better luck than we do.”

Morris acknowledges that the fugitive dust restriction probably doesn’t mean much to someone living adjacent to a gravel pit. “If you’re living next door to it, 5 percent is a lot of dust, especially because you’re exposed to it on a continual basis,” he said.

So neighbors aren’t waiting to see if the operation triggers DAQ action. Yeager and others have circulated a petition asking San Juan County to require Carroll to cease operations pending review of all permitting and zoning requirements, and further that San Juan County revise its zoning ordinances to prevent future conflicting uses. Support for the goals has been unanimous, and nearly every local household has signed, Yeager said.

So far the citizens’ group hasn’t gotten much traction on the petition’s first goal. Yeager said the neighbors went to Monticello for the July 13 county commission meeting, where they were told “if Mr. Carroll followed county rules then the county could not shut him down,” according to the minutes of the commission meeting.

“They said to us, at the commission meeting, well you guys should have looked to see what the zoning was,” Yeager said. “Who would have thought a gravel pit would be in agricultural zoning?”

One thing people would expect in an agricultural zone in Spanish Valley is alfalfa, and Carroll has been planting that on some contiguous property, leased from the state School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration. That field was freshly turned, dry and loose, when the wind began to blow last spring.

Sunny Acres Lane is downwind of the field, and residents Gail Darcey and Marlene Hucakbay say they have been digging and dusting since.

“I spent the last three months of this summer rigging up my own little wheelbarrow and sifter, sifting all the dirt out of all my rock and plants,” Darcey said. “I had like six inches of dirt. I got close to 20 wheelbarrows worth of dirt out of the rock.”

Both neighbors allowed that Carroll had no control over the winds, but they pointed out that he did have control over his schedule. They wish he had waited until Grand Water and Sewer Service Agency turned on the valley’s irrigation water before he plowed. Not only would that have provided water to keep the dirt down, it would have pushed the plowing back, missing the brunt of the early spring winds.

The problem exemplifies the complicated situation facing property owners in the valley. As Huckabay said of her choice to live in a rural area, “I wanted to be out in the country – it wasn’t about money, it was about quality of life.”

Life in the country can include freshly plowed fields, and even before Carroll broke ground on the alfalfa field, the parcel wasn’t dust-free. It’s impossible to say how much displaced soil would have piled up against Sunny Acres without the turned earth upwind. And without the gravel pit, the DAQ wouldn’t have anything to say about the situation.

“The first thing it says in our rules is agricultural and horticultural operations are exempt,” Morris said.

Monette Clark also lives nearby, though not downwind. Clark is a member of the fledgling San Juan County Planning and Zoning Board, an advisory committee to the county commission.

“It’s indicative of the problems up there,” Clark said of the neighborhood conflict. “It’s a good example of the conflicting uses that are occurring in the upper valley. I do live there, and I am concerned about these kinds of conflicting uses.”

The original planning for the Moab Business Park occurred over two years ago, before the board was formed, when the county commission was handling all the planning and zoning issues. Clark said expansion of the park hasn’t come before the board, so she’s not privy to any plans to develop the gravel pit further.

Clark said she hopes she can begin to initiate changes before more people are impacted by conflicts. “Our board as a whole is trying to get moving on updating our ordinances,” she said. “We just need to have some staff support.”

No matter what the outcome, Clark says she realizes there’s one thing nobody can change. “It’s a dusty place. Nobody can contest that,” she said.

Jay Morris affirms that fact, and he doesn’t paint a hopeful picture for anyone living immediately downwind of an excavated area. “We live in the desert,” he said. “If there is a high wind event they’re required to try and control their dust, but there’s no amount of water you can throw on loose material and keep it from blowing.”