By CHRIS GREEN

Harris News Service

TOPEKA -- Rock, sand and gravel mining operators would be able to obtain permits more easily under a bill now headed for the governor's desk.

The Kansas Senate voted 31-7 Monday in favor of legislation that would allow simple majorities of local governing bodies to clear the way to extract road and building construction materials.

Existing law requires super-majority votes from city or county commissions to override the objections of planning commissions or local property owners to a zoning change.

The measure, which passed the House 119-6, has faced opposition from the Saline County Commission, which failed to approve a permit in 2007 for Concordia-based Alsop Sand's proposed sand-mining operation southeast of Salina.

Senate Local Government Committee Chairman Roger Reitz, R-Manhattan, said he believed the bill would ensure a minority isn't able to block the mining of important materials for constructing roads and buildings.

"My position on this is that this is going to be something that the community needs to have access to," Reitz said.

Saline County Commission Chairman Randy Duncan, of Brookville, said he's personally hopeful that the governor will veto the bill.

He said groups which haven't liked the outcome of certain zoning decisions are responding by forcing changes in the law to help them overcome local opposition.

"It comes down to an issue of local control," Duncan.

Edward "Woody" Moses, a lobbyist for the Kansas Aggregate Producers Association, said there has been a noticeable decline over the last 10 years or so in the places where operators are permitted to extract rock, sand or gravel.

The state's zoning laws have added to that problem by allowing large property owners protesting the location of mining operations to effectively block projects, he said.

Protest petitions, which force local governing bodies to approve a project with a super-majority, require signatures from owners of 20 percent of the surrounding land. In some rural areas, it may only take one property owner to meet that threshold, Moses said.

"Essentially one owner could trump all the citizens of a county when it comes to the development of natural resources," he said.

Under the bill, a simple majority of governing body members could vote to approve rezoning for mining operations, even in the event of a successful protest petition. A three-fourths majority is presently mandated to override such a protest.

A simple majority of city or county commissioners also could vote to overturn a planning commission's recommendation against a rezoning proposal for mining.

The legislation would also bar cities or counties from requiring more than a simple majority to approve conditional- or special-use permits for mining operations.

The bill's changes would make it easier for the state to utilize its natural resources, Moses said.

He said aggregate producers have had problems gaining permits to extract materials across the state, including Pawnee, Wyandotte, Marshall and Johnson counties.

But the 2007 situation from Saline County has been cited as the most recent "poster child" for the industry's struggles to obtain permits that would allow them to extract materials, Moses said.

Alsop Sand, Concordia, which supported the zoning change bill, sought a conditional-use permit to open a sand mining operation in southeast Saline County. The project was blocked when the Saline County Commission failed to approve a permit.

Although the commission voted 2-1 in favor of issuing the permit, that fell short of the unanimous vote required for approval. Duncan said that permit dispute remains under litigation in the state's appellate court system.

Mining rezoning bill is SB 253: http://www.kslegislature.org/legsrv-bills/showBill.do?id=307393

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