The Chelsea City Council and Downtown Development Authority will hold a special joint meeting on Monday, Feb. 17 at 5 p.m. to discuss a special use application for a proposed sand mine for a site in Lyndon Township.
The city’s special meeting will take place at the new police building before the City Council’s regular meeting at 7 p.m. Monday night.
McCoig Sand and Gravel would like to begin mining sand from a site just off M-52 near Green Lake in the township and the proposal includes trucking the materials through downtown Chelsea en route to I-94.
Later on Monday night, a large crowd is expected at a Lyndon Township Planning Commission public hearing for the company’s special use application. The meeting will take place at Sylvan Township Hall, beginning at 7 p.m.
And, although the project is slated for Lyndon Township, the operation is expected to impact M-52 through Chelsea’s downtown with an estimated 60 trucks of material per day with a maximum of 80 trucks per day round trip traveling southeast on M-52 to I-94.
McCoig Materials plans to remove sand and gravel from an about 157-acre site at 18100 and 18200 M-52 on the east side of the road just south of North Territorial. The rural residential site is located between the Waterloo and Pinckney Recreation Areas and is about a half-mile from Park Lyndon.
Among the highlights of the application from Carlisle Wortman, Associates, Inc., the township’s planners are:
- The applicant proposes that about 74 acres would be mined for both sand and aggregate stone.
- The proposed mining area is currently vacant with the exception of a rental home on the western boundary along M-52.
- The site would be accessed through one paved driveway along M-52 south of the home on the site. The 30-foot wide access was approved by the state Department of Transportation, which has jurisdiction over M-52, which is a state road.
- 4-6 employees are expected to be on site with portable toilets
- There will be a processing plant which is proposed to be about 300 feet from the northern property line.
- The proposed hours of operation are Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 7 a.m.-noon.
- A 52-acre lake will be developed on the property, which will result in ground water changes, which are expected to be minor.
- Also planned are an additional 1.37 acres of wetlands and 35 acres of native wild prairie during the restoration process.
- There are five regulated wetlands on the site and seven residential wells within a half-mile.
- The land use in the area is primarily undeveloped and state-owned, but areas to the north and south are planned for future rural residential development on the township’s land use map.
- Extraction is planned to begin at the west and move to the east.
- The site is expected to yield about 11 million tons of material and about 500,000 tons per year.
- The applicant has stated it will take one year to excavate to base level and set up the processing plant and another two years to excavate the northeast corner of the property when restoration can begin. About 5 acres of the slopes are expected to be restored each year.
- The applicant is requesting Dec. 31, 2044, or 30 years, to complete the operation and restore the site.
- The planners recommend that the Planning Commission postpone approval of the special use until a number of plan and site plan issues, including limiting the hours of operation, be addressed.
A number of letters have been to the township opposing the application and one of them can be seen below.
The Planning Commission will hold a public hearing and make a recommendation on the application and forward it to the Lyndon Township Board, which will make the final decision on the request.
