Mining trains in Oakdale, Riverbank? Not all aboard

Riverbank and Oakdale officials are keeping their eyes on a plan to open a quarry in Tuolumne County.

The focus of their concern: the trains that would haul the crushed rock from the open-pit mine and go through their cities.

The Sierra Northern trains could be as long as two-thirds of mile and rumble through the cities at 10 mph.

Officials say the trains could slice their cities in half and back up traffic at railroad crossings, delay fire engines responding to 911 calls, and hold up buses and parents taking kids to and from school.

“You have traffic impacts, noise impacts,” said J.D. Hightower, Riverbank’s development services director. “A train approximately a mile long, I don’t know how you coordinate that with the traffic.”

The Tuolumne County Planning Commission endorsed the project last month. The project is scheduled to appear before the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors on March 15 for approval.

Officials from Riverbank and Oakdale plan to attend the meeting as well as Stanislaus County Supervisor Bill O’Brien, whose district includes the two cities. The Riverbank school district will send a representative.

“We understand the value of this project,” Riverbank Unified School District Superintendent Ken Geisick said. “But our concern is how we move students through town. This would stop north-south traffic. We already have a lot of delays with the other (train) lines that go through.”

Oakdale Superintendent Fred Rich declined to comment until he learns more about the project.

Riverbank officials have sent a letter to the Tuolumne County supervisors, asking them to delay their decision so city officials can have more time to compile a list of their concerns and how they can be addressed.

Oakdale also plans to send a letter.

City officials just recently learned about the project. Tuolumne County notified Stanislaus County about two years ago but did not notify Riverbank and Oakdale.

“It’s just the total lack of information by Tuolumne County,” said Hightower, the Riverbank official. “Without the information about exactly what is going to happen, we have no clue.”

The Cooperstown Quarry is proposed for 135 acres along the Stanislaus County line, about nine miles south of Knights Ferry. The site would consist of an open-pit mine and processing plant, and would employ 30 to 40 workers. The railroad also would hire workers.

“This creates jobs for the railroad and quarry, and provides rocks needed for levies and road construction,” said Dave Magaw, president of Sierra Northern Railway, which is owned by the Sierra Railroad Co. “There is a tremendous benefit.”

The Sierra Railroad operates dinner trains out of Oakdale, makes other tourist excursions into the foothills and Sierra Northern is its freight operation.

If Tuolumne County approves the mining operation, it could open in about a year.

But that depends on how long it takes the mine operator to complete the approximately 100 conditions the county has imposed to lessen the mine’s impact, said planning consultant Bruce Baracco. He is working with property owners Jack and Tricia Gardella and mine operator Resource Exploration Drilling LLC on the project.

Baracco said the conditions include preserving land for open space and planting 10 acorns for every oak tree that is removed. The site would be mined in phases, and as the mine operators finish a phase, they would restore it to grazing land as they mine the next phase.