Ulland Bros. Inc. cleared a hurdle Tuesday night en route to obtaining a conditional use permit for a mining operation at a historic gravel pit.

The Mower County Planning Commission gave its unanimous endorsement of the Ulland Bros. Inc. request for a conditional use permit to allow mineral extraction, crushing and wash plant and temporary placement of asphalt or ready-mix plant at the south expansion of its Grand Meadow quarry in Section 9, Frankford Township.

The site is the former Osmundson Bros. quarry along Mower County CSAH No. 2 near Bear Creek Lutheran Church outside Grand Meadow. It has been mined for more than six decades and is the largest in Mower County.

The commission’s recommendation will now be considered by the Mower County Board of Commissioners at a public hearing scheduled for 1:15 p.m. Tuesday, May 5.

Valerie Raverty made the oral presentation for the Albert Lea- based firm’s CUP request.

No one spoke in opposition to the request.

Angie Knish, county environmental services director, gave the staff report, which attached 22 conditions to the permit if granted.

Margaret Kirchner, rural Dexter, and Jane Thome, rural Adams, visited the site with Knish and heard Raverty’s on-location report of Ulland Bros., Inc.’s plans.

According to Raverty, demand remains high for gravel to be mined from the quarry.

Ulland Bros. Inc. uses most of it, she said, but there is also demand from local contractors, Mower County, townships and cities and the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

“I think the need is there and we would like to supply that demand for aggregate,” Raverty said.

The proposed site is now cropland.

Jeff Green, hydrogeologist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, was at Tuesday night’s meeting to answer any county planning commission questions.

Green told about the DNR’s ambitious program to protect well water, when dewatering at quarry sites occurs.

Kirchner made the motion to adopt the findings of fact and recommend approval of the request to the county commissioners. Harlan Peck, rural Austin, seconded Kirchner’s motion, and it was unanimously approved.

Green suggested Mower County consider renewing its annual “spot-check” of all quarries and gravel its in the county started under former environmental services director Daryl W. Franklin, who has retired.

Knish and the county planning commission members said they will take the suggestion under advisement.

‘Whoa!’ say

officials

James Yerhart and his brother, David, were primed for Tuesday night’s county planning commission meeting.

They were there to seek a CUP to operate a new solid waste handling facility, Y Waste Removal, Inc., on land owned by David Yerhart in Section 15, Lyle Township.

The commission’s investigating committee of Kirchner and Thome visited the site and Knish prepared a staff report attaching 13 conditions to the CUP if granted.

A letter of opposition from a partner in the James and Jimmye Hall Trust, who own land in Lyle Township adjoining the David Yerhart farm was read into the record.

Commission member Peck said he had received a telephone call registering opposition to the proposal.

Then, the Yerhart brothers spoke.

The landowner, David Yerhart, said, “I don’t want to destroy the land either,” referring to Hall Trust’s letter expressing environmental concerns about a waste handling facility in the rural area.

He also said only one refuse hauling truck would be parked overnight at the facility and that when it left to make its runs, it would be empty of trash when it returned.

His brother, James, made an impassioned plea for his business.

“I’m here to give back to the community,” said the 27-year-old man.

He said his new trash collection business would use the Austin waste transfer station and offer discounts to senior citizens and veterans.

Parking the truck — Y Waste Removal Inc.’s only vehicle at present — at his brother’s farm was only a “temporary solution” for his start-up business.

Jeff Peterson, a neighbor of the David Yerhart farm, told the commission he visited with three members of the Lyle Township Board Monday and “They said they knew nothing about the request.”

David Baldner, Lyle Township Board member, told the commission, the township board has not yet met to discuss the request.

“No information is not good,” Baldner said, “but if we get the information then we can understand what they’re asking.”

“Nobody likes surprises,” Tim Gabrielson, 1st District Mower County Commissioner, said.

Gabrielson said communications between he petitioners and the township and planning commission officials were necessary.

Gabrielson, the non-voting chairman of the county planning commission, asked environmental services director Knish if the CUP request could be tabled.

Knish said the commission had 60 days to make a recommendation and for the county commissioners to act. That would push the deadline to June 2.

The Yerharts agreed with the proposal.

Peck made a motion to table action on the CUP request until the commission’s May 26 meeting. Jim Risius, Brownsdale, seconded it.

The motion was unanimously approved.

The Lyle Township Board will meet May 11 to consider the Yerharts’ proposal, according to Baldner.