The San Bernardino County Supervisors meeting on August 18 drew a large number of commenters on item 76: "Conduct a public hearing to consider the proposed ordinance to repeal and reenact local surface mining and land reclamation regulations." Commenters expressed strong concerns that through the proposed changes, the County was handing over environmental review to the recently greatly weakened federal environmental review process. After the comment period, Chair Dawn Rowe...

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With a focus on health concerns in addition to support for other commenters' concerns with tourism, MBCA sent a comment letter opposing the Supervisors' August 18 impending vote to approve a recommendation that would remove the county from the permitting of mining operations with federal approval. Federal environmental guidelines have been changed to reduce effective review. The specific concern addressed is fine particles of the radioactive element Thorium unearthed in...

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The Initial Study for this proposal to create twelve 5-acre Rural Living-zoned lots in the Pioneertown area contains many conflicts with the County Wide Plan that are outlined in MBCA’s comment letter to Land Use Services. MBCA objects to the County's support of a  Mitigated Negative Declaration for the project and urges a full Environmental Impact Report be completed. MBCA's comment letter and appendices describe a number of critical oversights...

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