photography / Troy Boman Looking south from the top of the Alta View Concrete pit north of Stockton, trucks and heavy machinery remove gravel from the Stockton Bar. Stockton residents are complaining about excessive dust created by the mining operation.

by Sarah Miley

STAFF WRITER

Take one look at the Stockton Bar these days and it's apparent that the natural barrier between Rush Valley and Tooele Valley is disappearing at a rapid rate. Gravel pit operations on both sides of the bar -- a set of gravel and sand ridges formed by Lake Bonneville -- have been busy digging away at its edges, leaving residents still complaining about dust and brown haze looming over the town.

Rulon Aufdemorte, who has lived in Stockton for 68 years, said he is concerned about the health impacts the dust may have on residents.

"I walk to the post office and sometimes you can feel the sand hit you in the face," Aufdemorte said. "Some of the sand gets in your lungs. It's a real problem."

He added you can't see the really fine sand blowing about -- but you can feel it and smell it.

"We've got to take care of it now because what about the health of the people -- especially the younger and older people. That sand gets down in your lungs," he said.

Mary Edwards, a 35-year Stockton resident, said the dust problem hasn't been as bad through spring but as it begins to warm up and drier summer weather comes on, she expects it'll be at least as bad as last summer.

"The dust just gets everywhere," she said, adding that last summer when she dusted her furniture in the morning, by evening dust would already be settled back on it.

Butch Savage, plant manager at the Alta View Concrete pit north of Stockton, said the company has built a berm and seeded it with a native plant mix, as well as trees every 10 to 15 feet on top of the berm, as a dust mitigation effort. There is also a full-time water truck at the site to help with that issue, he said.

Savage added the plant is now on permanent power, rather than its previous power supply off a generator, so the noise is lessened. The company also has plans to have a decorative landscape at the entrance to the pit.

"I know it's kind of an eyesore for the city when they're not used to stuff like this, but I think we've gone above and beyond," Savage said. "The downfall of Stockton and Tooele is that it's windy out here and we see the complaints when we get a north wind. When we get a south wind, we don't hear a word. That's just Mother Nature working against us there."

Some experts say the bar serves the important purpose of being a barrier between cold Rush Valley and warmer Tooele Valley, and when it's destroyed, the climatic impacts could be serious.

Aufdemorte said the winds that made the waves that pushed sand and gravel to the Stockton Bar from ancient Lake Bonneville are the same winds the area gets now.

"The lake's gone, but the winds are still here," he said.

Aufdemorte believes when much of the bar is destroyed or breached, the wind will affect not just Rush Valley, but the Tooele Valley as well.

Edwards too is concerned about the impact dismantling the bar will have on the two valleys.

"The wind will change," she said. "If it doesn't have that resistance there, where the Stockton Bar is, it's going to be a lot more windy."

Edwards added another problem with the gravel pits has been their hours of operation. Now there is a form at Stockton Town Hall that residents can fill out that has spaces for the date and time when offenses occurred regarding operations at the bar outside of the approved hours.

Those in the geological community are also saddened to see the bar brought down.

"What is so alarming is that within a year or two we can take away parts of the Stockton Bar that might have taken a few thousand years to build up," said Marjorie Chan, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah. "The whole thing is irreversible. They just can't go back later and dump a bunch of sand and gravel in there and expect it to be the same."

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