Several fortunes have been made in recent years by digging into Tooele County hills for gravel and other rock products. Many of those products have been used locally throughout our decade-long building boom. Where these extractions can be accomplished with moderate environmental impact and without spoiling the quality of life for residents, we support these businesses’ right to fulfill market demand.

However, there should be limits on where extraction companies can operate, and a good place to draw a line in the sand is at the Stockton Bar.

The Stockton Bar is not just another hill. Geologists have called it one of the world’s greatest geoantiquities, containing a fossil record dating back to ancient Lake Bonneville. Climatologists have speculated that its dismantling could have devastating consequences on weather patterns, since the bar serves as a natural barrier between the Tooele Valley and the much colder Rush Valley. Early settlers of the area claimed even the small notch carved into the bar by the Union Pacific Railroad in 1902 made a difference in climate as warmer air from Tooele Valley rushed toward Rush Valley.

The current gravel operation on the south side of the Stockton Bar has been lambasted by nearby residents for a host of problems including dust pollution, traffic congestion, noise, chipped windshields from spilt gravel, and the creation of an eyesore at the entrance to Stockton. Yet the operation appears to be growing by leaps and bounds, with extraction efforts continuing at a frantic pace.

The Tooele County Planning Commission is currently studying the potential impacts of allowing another gravel pit operation on the Stockton Bar. Planners are reviewing such issues as wind patterns, traffic impacts, the possibility of contaminated soil nearby, possible impacts on water and air quality, current county gravel resources, and whether or not the use is consistent with the county’s general plan for development.

Though this study is certainly warranted, we can’t help thinking it has come far too late.

The county’s first mistake was authorizing any gravel extraction operations at the Stockton Bar. The decision to allow a pit on the south side of the bar benefited one company at the expense of many Stockton residents — and to the detriment of the county as a whole. The bar is simply worth more to future generations than any amount of gravel we can extract from it.

We urge county leaders to not compound this mistake by allowing another gravel pit at the Stockton Bar. In fact, we’d like to see a more exhaustive analysis of the current pits’ impact on all the factors being studied by the planning commission for this newly proposed pit. How does it make sense to apply such scrutiny to this proposal while essentially giving the first pit carte blanche to ignore all these same valid concerns?

Residents have a right to know what’s being lost at the Stockton Bar. And the county has an obligation to provide those answers before the questions are made moot by continuing gravel operations.