Field being turned into a lake

Nick m

Member
We received a letter in the mail from deq stating a gravel company is wanting to dig a 108 acre lake directly across the road from some of our property. They'd mine all the gravel and end up with a lake around 20ft deep. Looks to be about a 20yr project. When done they're planning on developing the ground around the lake, and making the lake public. Kind of crazy. They have about a 15 acre lake there now, but this is big. Some people are angry and doubtful it will ever be fully completed ,some happy, and some like me, just kind of curious and impartial. Any of you experince something like this? Sounds like some public hearings to come. It'll be directly behind Wal-Mart(about 1 mile) on the north east corner of Sprague and Harwood rds for the few of you that know the area.
 
It happened in several places in SW lower Mich. One area was muck fieldsand they dug sand out under the muck. Ended up with a 20 to 30 deep hole with pumps running 24 hous a day until they finished. It took a couple of months to fill up. They then sloped the banks and sold lots off. Last time I went thru there you would never know there use to be a field there. This is between 80 to 100 acres and it took about 5 years to dig
 
Well it sound like it is in a developing area and is on the site of a current quarry. I would not see anything wrong with them making it bigger. Your going to need sand and gravel from some where. So close to where your using it makes sense to me. As for the after. You can find hundred of old quarries turned into lakes. They usually work out well and look nice. I really can not see any negatives about it. local jobs, material that is needed for any future development, and the potential for a nice lake in the future for public and private use. Sounds all good to me.
 
I used to work on equipment in there when the bottom of that was dry! That's a pretty deep hole. Haven't been that way in quite a long time, well, since I quit working for the dealer that serviced their equipment.

Ross
 
Yeah Nick, been done a little ways from me. A couple different scenarios too. One is gravel ponds that were donated to the county for a tax break. Being "waterfront", etc, they had a good tax value, so it was more profitable to donate most of it to the county. The part that was withheld from the county was probably the most easily made into a beach, but was offered to the county for a large sum of money. Well, the county wanted that part to complete their pond property, so paid very highly for it. So, the owner got money from the sale of the land, and from the tax break for donating the other. Now, in the other situation, they did as you say they'll do near you. A big gravel pond, finish graded around it when they were done mining the gravel out, and put up the property around it as lakefront lots. They started selling lots probably 25 years ago, and I'll bet they have only sold a third of them out of MAYBE 50 lots. They want stupid amounts of money for their "lakefront" lots that are in a rural area, with a very unkempt dairy farm directly to the west, and an operating pit across the road and kitty corner from their developing project. Yes, if you were to live in the development, it would probably be pretty quiet aside from all the other things going on around that would be beyond your control, and you wouldn't have to worry about any white trash neighbors with the price of their lots, but you may have to deal with people that think they're special and have money.

Ross
 
They tried that here in several different places. All the company's were underfunded and went out of business. Needless to say they left 3 or 4 messes. Now the taxpayers on the hook for thousands of dollars doing cleanup. Are these guys doing any blasting??? They have been known to crack foundations/walls up to 2 miles away. The dozens or hundreds of trucks will destroy a gravel or blacktop road. They attempted to start a quarry across the road. They lied to us about the quality of the rock they were to produce. I do not know your situation, around here the runoff from the mining floods creeks causing excess erosion. You really need a good attorneys advice. We had 1. If blasting, it would not be hard to destroy your entire homestead. It happened in our county. Your insurance pays -- if they will pay at all. As I stated above you need an attorney to look over everything. If they have to get operating permits from the county both you and your attorney need to attend. They will probably put on a power point display, get a good look at it and see if you can get a copy, for that matter you need a copy of anything they propose. Do not let them walk all over you, you have rights too. Good luck with it.
 
Don't mining companies have buy a bond to grade and put things back to "normal" when there finished? Could be a way to get around buying mining permits and such. Big difference between digging a pond and opening a mine.
 
(quoted from post at 22:38:09 01/14/18) Don't mining companies have buy a bond to grade and put things back to "normal" when there finished? Could be a way to get around buying mining permits and such. Big difference between digging a pond and opening a mine.



Open mines reclaim what land they can, and the rest can become ponds, or a lake. The local government has no problems with making it a lake, property value around it goes up, just like the taxes will go up on the land around it.
 
A couple big things they'll have going for them is to the west there's thousands of acres of state land. To the east, there's a 10 acre partial between them and Wal-Mart. It's only 1 mile from m66 (decent highway) and then 5ish miles from i96, then almost directly in the middle of Lansing and grand rapids, both easily commuteable. They'll be good with location I think.
 
The "going out of business and leaving a mess" thing has been brought up. As far as blasting, they haven't done any yet and already been there 5+years just on a smaller scale. Not aware of anyone in the area that has had too and there are a few small pits around. We'll see i guess. I don't live there, just have 33 acres directly to the south across the road. There are some people to north that live there that are p'ed right off and dead set against it.
 
My personal opinion, it is the old bate and switch scheme. Here in my town in South Jersey we had a landfill that was out of use for 10 or more years. A local company came up with a plan to cover it with a poly blanket and cover this with dirt and then build condos on site. All looked great on paper. 10 yrs later the landfill did get the poly blanket and it got covered with dirt hauled in from a dredging operation need New York City. The dirt smelled so bad that some of the nearby residents complained they were feeling sick. The dirt kept coming and the landfill looks like a mountain. In my opinion there was never any intention to do this project as planned, it was all about the developer having a contract to haul away the spoils from the dredging operation and nothing more. So you may never see that lake after the mining is completed.
 
There is one near me, a 352 acre property, it has 2 small lakes. The property has been for sale for years, no mining in at least 10 years. The price is very high, I heard that several developers have passed on it, a high price , lots of infrastructure needed, limited market. The lakes aren?t very big, maybe 5 acres at the most. I think the idea is pretty much a wet dream.....:)
 
I wouldn't like it either. They make quite a mess when making a rock quarry. Then they dynamite from daylight to early evening. I had one about three miles from my house and I got sick of the dynamite before it was over. Even at that distance it would shake the house.
 
There have been some frac sand mining operations in WI that have been closed now, half completed and not restored. Your township should get some bond money to make sure any restoration promised actually gets done.

Also someone should be on the lookout for dumping etc. I went to a dairy farm auction a few years ago where a farmer had gotten a lot of well contamination from a neary quarry- they were dumping batteries and other nasties, and ended up contaminating the drinking water.

So there are reasons for concern.

To put an antique tractor in all this, there is an abandoned stone quarry about 15-20 miles from me that was in limestone. When it as done, it was allowed to fill up (as the pumps were turned off). The equipment was left there. The water is now about 80 feet deep. I'm told two Waterloo Boys and an early D are at the bottom, left there from running the pumps and crushers. Maybe true, maybe just "old tractor legends"- but am told that some divers ID'd the tractors...
 
On the plus side if you will still be there in 25-30 years you may see an increase in your property value if the project is ever completed.

On the negative side you get 20 years of listening to crushers, conveyors, loaders and dump trucks.
And of course the associated dust, traffic and hammered out roads.
 

We have probably 35 of those sand pit development around northwest Wichita and they are stellar! Very high-end homes on expensive lake" front lots. They have greatly improved NW Wichita and if you can get one near you they will raise the value of your property a lot. Of course it will take the 20 years they stated - the point is not to built a development, the point is to run a sand/gravel/concrete company.
 
Where I use to live in Riverside California. We had a out fit that did some strip mining they where doing it for Cement. What happen is that they ran in to three springs of water after a certain depth those making it even harder to keep digging. So what happen after that it just sets there as a big mess. The question is it what you the people want? Is the state tied in to it good luck in wining it as a no then. If it is a private business you could and might be able to win. Just some thing to think about.
 
A company came here (SW Ohio) about 20 years ago, bought over 200 A. of prime farmland. Wanted to do some 'wet' mining'. Blast under water in the aquifer which is only about 30 ft. from surface. Some locals were concerned about water quality in their private wells, damage to houses from blasting, tearing up county & township roads, and noise. They formed a group,contacted local government agencies, eventually sued. Some testified in Statehouse. Eventually, an agreement was reached. Quarry would do 'dry mining.' on about 10 A., above aquifer. It is now a county park. The remainder is not being worked due to little need for aggregate. So, the type of mining they want to do makes a big difference.
 
The biggest thing to push for and demand is some sort of guaranteed performance bond.
Or whatever they might call it, with built in costs adjustments to insure that the "finishing" work will be done before the gravel company walks away or goes belly up.
It should also include clauses that all requirements will be enforced upon any and all future owners if the gravel company should change hands, etc.
And the public entity that might receive the bond money if they default can not use that bond money on any other property or project at all.
Knowing SW Michigan, I doubt there will be any blasting or even crushers on site. Unless they get into crushing concrete.
So maybe the agreement should also state no materials are to be brought in, only materials from property ships out.
 

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