by Robert C. Pavlik
(I have no answers, only observations – RCP)
Presented at the CCPH Annual Conference, Eureka California, September 2004
Big Sur is a community at a crossroads. It has long been a rugged, isolated region of the Central California Coast, where the residents have prided themselves on self-sufficiency and autonomy. Like many rural areas is has been sustained by extractive industries and ecotourism, a tenuous and at times contentious balance of competing interests. This paper will explore one such issue, the Pico Blanco mining controversy, which was decided by an U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1987, and its possible (inadvertent) impacts on the local community.
Local History
The name “Big Sur” is derived from the Spanish, “El Pais Grande del Sur,” or “The Big Country to the South.” Spanish missionaries who established the mission at Monterey in 1770 referred to the steep folded mountains as “the Big Country,” a range of mountains bypassed as they migrated north in their colonization of Alta California.
The first land grant in Big Sur was made to Juan Bautista Alvarado in 1834, almost 9000 acres south of the Little Sur River. Alvarado sold his claim to Juan Bautista Rogers Cooper in 1840, and a large portion of Cooper’s El Sur Ranch is still intact today. Emmanuel Innocenti and his family lived in Big Sur and managed the ranch for Cooper. Manuel Peak, south of Pico Blanco is named in his honor. The first Euroamericans to settle on the Big Sur coast arrived in 1869, and built a home at the mouth of Sycamore Canyon. Michael and Barbara Pfeiffer left their surname, along with an extended family that includes the Trotter clan, on the land.
Other homesteaders arrived on the coast, and their first concern was to establish a self-sustaining economy. The rugged topography and distance from population centers isolated Big Surians, and so the development of the coast was slow. The major sources of cash income were cattle, logging, and mining. Redwood and tanoak were logged in the canyons, hauled out via mule teams to the coast, and loaded on ships at Notley’s Landing, Bixby (Mill) creek, the Big Sur River mouth, Partington Canyon, and Limekiln Creek, along with several other doghole ports along the coast. Mining activities included gold and silver production in the Los Burros Mining District, as well as limestone for the burning of lime to be used in cement production. Today, ranching and recreation are the only industries in Big Sur of any note (by recreation I am including the tourism industry).
Local Planning and Government Control
Changes in technology, an emerging environmental consciousness, the state’s explosive population growth and subsequent building boom, the construction of Highway 01 and the attendant rise in tourism, all necessitated additional government regulation in the U.S., California, and along the Big Sur Coast to ensure a quality environment for all citizens.
The Monterey Forest Reserve was created in 1906 by Teddy Roosevelt, comprising almost a third of a million acres of the Santa Lucia range. Monterey County developed a Coastal Master Plan in 1962, providing for limited development of the Big Sur Coast, and maintenance of a two-lane scenic highway. The Carmel to San Simeon Highway was designated as the state’s first official scenic highway in 1965. The passage of Proposition 20, the California Coastal Act in 1972 created the California Coastal Commission, which required the preparation of a Local Coastal Plan for Big Sur. A Citizens Advisory Committee was organized, to make recommendations to the Commission and the county board of supervisors. Their recommendations included the preservation of a rural, agricultural economy, and the precedence of private ownership and land stewardship over increased government control.
A narrow strip of land between the Pacific Ocean and the national forest is comprised of private, state, and federal lands, with over 25 private organizations and governmental agencies managing land and resources and regulating various activities.
The Battle for Pico Blanco
Pico Blanco is a part of the Santa Lucia range, and is surrounded by the north and south forks of the Little Sur River, an undammed and unpolluted river that is a candidate for Wild and Scenic River status for its entire 23 mile length. It towers over the El Sur Ranch and Andrew Molera State Park, and is a prominent landmark on the Big Sur Coast.
In 1963 Granite Rock Company of Watsonville purchased Pico Blanco Mountain. Today the company owns or leases claims to approximately 2,800 acres. The company purchased the land for the purpose of mining high grade limestone from Pico Blanco, which is estimated to contain app. 600 million to one billion tons of aspirin grade-quality material.
Opposition began from the outset. Keeping in mind that the Wilderness Act of 1964 was in the making, and that Glen Canyon had been lost, local conservationists were rallying to protect Pico Blanco from exploitation.
Granite Rock Company had planned on two methods for transporting limestone from the mountain to the Monterey Peninsula for processing. The limestone is covered by a very thin capstone, or layer of rock and soil that would be removed by blasting. The limestone would then be exposed to the surface, where it could be dynamited, quarried, loaded onto trucks or a conveyance system, and transported to the cement plant. Small amounts of limestone (under 500 tons) had been quarried from the east side of Pico Blanco each year since 1962. The limestone was moved via truck, on sinuous mountain roads and Highway 1. Expanded mining operations would require a large access road bordering the Little Sur River, as well as increased truck traffic on Highway 1. The company also proposed a conveyance system, consisting of a conveyor belt from the quarry site, west to Molera Ridge, down the slop of Molera Ridge and over or under the highway to a point called False Sur (on the El Sur Ranch), where a pier would be constructed for loading onto ocean barges. Keep in mind, this is what early loggers and miners did in the Big Sur area one hundred years earlier. However, the scale (and environmental impacts) was much greater than anything the pioneers could have envisioned, much less accomplished with their limited equipment and access to markets.
The quarry site on Pico Blanco is not within the five-mile limit of the Coastal Commission jurisdiction, but plans for road building or a conveyance system are within the coastal zone. In 1981 the County Planning Commission adopted a Local Coastal Plan for Big Sur which in part approved of mining operations on the east (inland) side of Pico Blanco, as well as mooring and harbor facilities to transfer limestone to ocean barges. However, in September 1981 the Coastal Commission rejected the Big Sur LCP as “too vague” and tried to force the county to ban mining operations altogether on Pico Blanco.
In 1981 the US Forest Service completed an Environmental Assessment/Finding of No Significant Impact and approved a five year operating plan for Granite Rock that allowed the company to expand exploratory operations by opening a quarry, establishing a disposal site and extracting 32,000 tons a year of limestone for five years. The FONSI stated that “Granite Rock is responsible for obtaining all required permits established by federal, state, or local agencies having jurisdiction for environmental components not under the enforcement authority of the US Forest Service.” They also stated that the company was responsible for obtaining any permits required by the California Coastal Commission.”
That didn’t go over real big with Granite Rock, a family owned company dominated by a conservative Republican who was already working on his Washington connections in the Reagan administration to reduce or eliminate any real or perceived roadblocks to his company’s right to use their property (and public property under the 1872 Mining Law).
In 1983 the California Coastal Commission directed Granite Rock Company to apply for a coastal development permit. Granite Rock Company took the unprecedented action of suing the California Coastal Commission, stating in effect that because they were operating under the Mining Law of 1872 (and therefore federal law and regulation), they were not subject to state control. In other words, Granite Rock refused to even consider applying for a coastal development permit. They instead took the Coastal Commission to court, challenging the Commission’s right to regulate activities on federal land within the state’s boundaries. Reagan’s Interior Department, headed by San Luis Obispo County rancher William P. Clark, Jr. joined the lawsuit in 1984. The federal government was concerned that a state agency could block mineral exploration by a private enterprise. They apparently feared that federal mineral lands across the country and especially in Alaska could become subject to western states’ regulatory authority. This is from the administration that championed states’ rights over federal control. The Coastal Commission stated in their suit that “The Coastal Commission seeks not to prohibit or ‘veto’ but to regulate [Granite Rock’s] mining activity in accordance with the detailed requirements of the California Coastal Act…Granite Rock has not applied for any coastal permit, and the State…has not indicated that it would in fact ban such activity…the question presented here is merely whether the state can regulate uses rather than prohibit them….the state is not seeking to determine basic uses of federal land: rather it is seeking to regulate a given mining use so that it is carried out in a more environmentally sensitive and resource-protective fashion.”
Granite Rock contended that the state wanted to establish such strict rules and conditions that the project would be rendered infeasible, thereby constituting a taking of their property. Woolpert stated that his mining claim in the Los Padres was worth $100 million, and that he would “demand that amount in ‘just compensation’ if he is not permitted to proceed with the mining project.” Linus Masouredis, the state’s attorney who argued on behalf of the coastal commission, stated that “’We’re saying we should be able to set some controls. We don’t think they should be permitted to strip-mine the area, blast into the mountain, pollute the streams and leave the land exhausted.”
The Big Sur Foundation as well as attorneys general from eight western states joined the Commission in its suit. U.S. District Judge William Schwarzer found in favor of the state. That decision was overturned by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on August 14, 1985, stating that the idea of allowing the Coastal Commission jurisdiction over mining on federal land impinges on federal authority. State Attorney General John Van de Kamp appealed the federal appellate court decision to the Supreme Court in January 1986. In his brief, Van de Kamp stated that the appeals court’s decision “would cripple the states’ ability to protect against the detrimental effects of mining on a vast scale throughout the West.”
The Supreme Court decided in the states’ favor in a landmark ruling in March 1987. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the majority opinion (the case was decided on a 5-4 vote. She was joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Brennan, Jr., Marshall and Blackmun. Justices Powell, Jr., Stevens, White and Scalia dissented). O’Connor’s decision was not a sweeping victory but it does recognize the states’ ability to impose reasonable regulation on federal lands and activities.
The validity of the mining claims is recognized in the updated Forest Plan for the Los Padres National Forest, as is the need to “secure necessary permits from the state,” and to “prepare an Environmental Impact Statement to cover proposed mining of Pico Blanco. Process will be initiated by filing of Operating Plan by Granite Rock.” Granite Rock company has not filed an Operating Plan for further mining activities on Pico Blanco, and therefore has not had to apply for a coastal permit.
Big Sur Today
Meanwhile, Pico Blanco still broods over one of the most magnificent coastlines in the world. The locals struggle to make a living on this rugged and fragile coastline. Mining, logging and ranching are rapidly becoming historic industries here. Jobs that once required a thorough knowledge of mules and tools have been replaced by service industry workers and government employees. Many of the old timers that I once knew are gone, as is their pioneer way of life. Its pretty remarkable that they were able to live the lives they did, so far into the twentieth century, in a land that was slow to emerge from the nineteenth. Today Big Sur is preserved, relatively pristine, and yet, there is still something missing. I go looking for it when I hike up Partington canyon, for example, searching out the springboard holes in the cut stumps of once giant redwoods, and when I gaze upon Pico Blanco, described by poet Robinson Jeffers as a “steep sea-wave of marble,” or stand upon the manmade platform at Limekiln Creek where a small hill was truncated for a shipping platform, a rustic landing where lime and redwood and tanbark were once loaded onto ships and sent to build California’s great cities and towns. It’s the people that are missing, not the tourists or the baristas or the bartenders, but the cowboys, carpenters, miners and lumbermen of Big Sur who were the real deal. They had arms as big as small tree trunks and hands like baseball mitts. Their trucks sported an assortment of tools and gun racks. They could build anything, solve just about any problem, knew how to take care of themselves and others. They savored their isolation, enjoyed each other’s company, questioned authority and bristled at what they deemed unnecessary government control, fought to preserve not only their way of life but their coast and community as well. They loved the land and knew it better than anyone. They survived fires, floods, storms, drought, road closures, economic downturns, economic booms, hippies, yuppies, politicians, war, and peace. The rest of the state, indeed the world has changed dramatically, even as this place remains seemingly static. So, while we might disagree with them over some issues of land use and property rights and public access, we have to think of them and give them credit for not only enduring in what can be both a heartbreakingly beautiful place but one that can visit untold hardship and challenges on even the most resolute individual, and for their passionate defense of their wild and remote piece of the California dream.
In the early 1980s the locals successfully fought off an effort by Ansel Adams, Fred Farr, Leon Panetta, Phil Burton, Alan Cranston and others to create a Big Sur National Seashore/National Scenic Area, but that is the subject of another paper.
In a recent Los Angeles Times article, they state that 84% of the 255,000 acres included in the Big Sur Planning Area of the Monterey County General Plan is restricted. 45,000 acres along the coast remains in private hands, and some of those acres are owned by land trusts that prohibit development. John Johnson, “Two Camps in Big Sur,” Los Angeles Times, Monday March 15, 2004, A1. Those activities include road construction, hunting and fishing, collecting jade, cutting timber, water diversion, residential and commercial development, etc.
As quoted in Laurie Jordan, “California Coastal Commission V. Granite Rock Company: The States’ Voice in Federal Land Policy gets Louder but not much Clearer,” Environmental Law 18 No. 1 (Fall 1987), 198.
Alan Parachini, “Mountain-Mining Dispute Rocks Scenic Big Sur,” Los Angeles Times Sunday April 8, 1984, part VI, p. 4.
Initially Granite Rock owner Bruce Woolpert appealed to the infamous James Watt, asking that the Interior Department pave the way for Granite’s approval to mine on federal land, in this case owned and managed by the US Department of Agriculture—Forest Service. Ibid., 12.
U.S. Supreme Court, “California Coastal Commission v. Granite Rock Co., 480 U.S. 572 (1987)” Argued December 2, 1986, Decided March 24, 1987
David G. Savage, “Justices to Hear Attempt to Halt Big Sur Mining,” Los Angeles Times November 29, 1986, part I, pg. 1.
Ronald L. Soble, “Court Nullifies State Limit on Big Sur Mining,” Los Angeles Times Thursday, August 15, 1985, part I, pg. 3.
“State appeals mining regulation ruling,” Fresno Bee January 17, 1986. All told, nineteen states joined California in the lawsuit that was argued before the Supreme Court.
David G. Savage, “California Wins Federal Lands Suit; Justices Say State’s Ecology Rules Apply to U.S. –owned Area,” Los Angeles Times March 25, 1987, part 1, pg. 1; “Preventing a Wound on the Coast,” Los Angeles Times Editorial, March 26, 1987.
“Los Padres National Forest Land Management Plan,” March 2004, p. V-106.
Walter and Frank Trotter, Hans and Esther Ewoldsen, Pat Chamberlain and Barbara Von Protz, and Maury and Lydia Alsop (Granite Rock Company’s caretakers on Pico Blanco)
Copyright 2008 Robert C. Pavlik All Rights Reserved
