The gravel quarries, as they now operate, let alone expanded, don't belong in a residential area. Started decades ago, with use permits of limited duration, covering limited land area, these quarries have 'had their run.'

The quarries now overwhelm our small town - with up to 700 gravel trucks a day (according to the quarries' count) rolling through town or down Mirabel Road. With noise of crushing, loading and back-up whistles starting at 7 in the morning, six days a week disturbing neighbors for miles, with unsightly equipment and rockpiles intruding on our Scenic Highway. And worst of all, with toxic diesel fumes from quarry trucks poisoning our air for everyone adult and child visiting, living, or working in Forestville.

While we need gravel for construction (the Forestville gravel is used mainly for road beds, as I understand it), most other populated areas in these parts(San Francisco, Marin County) have long since given up quarrying in residential neighborhoods, and turned to imports from less populated areas. That way everyone bears the real 'cost' associated with gravel production, not just the unlucky neighbors of the quarries burdened with the relentless traffic, the intrusive noise, the poisonous diesel fumes, and the unsightly operations.

Anectodes about people 'favoring the quarries' (do they also favor the traffic and the toxic fumes?) are very much at odds with the sentiments expressed at town meeting after town meeting when the topic is invariably raised. At the town meeting held specifically to discuss the quarries, after presentations by both the quarries, and full, open discussion, a show of hands showed four (4)people in favor of expansion and seventy-one (71) opposed. A written survey was distributed at the last town meeting. The results: two (2) in favor of expansion and everyone else opposed.

There are many other sources of road bed gravel - other than the Russian River. Most residential communities have turned to them already. Sooner or later, we will have to as well. Let's do it sooner, rather than later, before all the damage is done.