NORTH BEND – With the release of the final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for Cadman Inc.’s proposed gravel mine on Grouse Ridge comes the increased chance that the fate of the project could be decided in a courtroom.

Since September, the Grouse Ridge Legal Fund Inc. has amassed more than $30,000 to challenge the proposed mine. The legal fund was created as an offshoot to the Cascade Gateway Foundation, which opposes the project.

The legal fund’s organizers had hoped to raise $50,000 by the end of the year to pay for lawyers and experts hired to counter information contained in the FEIS.

Now that the FEIS has been published, the King County Department of Development and Environmental Services (DDES) could issue a grading permit for the project. Members of Cascade Gateway and the Grouse Ridge Legal Fund hope the donations they received in recent months will prevent that from happening.

“We’re going to fight it as energetically as we can, and who knows in what arena,” said Jeff Martine, president of Cascade Gateway.

He added there is some debate whether to take the case to King County Superior Court or to federal court because County Executive Ron Sims signed a memorandum of understanding for the project in 1998, which Cascade Gateway believes causes a conflict of interest for the county.

That argument is tied to another concerning which exit of Interstate 90 Cadman should use to access the site. Under the current plans for the mine, trucks would use Exit 34 near Ken’s Truck Town, causing them to travel by the location of a future elementary school. The trucks would then be loaded at the mine’s 33-acre “lower” site, which would be connected by a 5,300-foot-long conveyor to a 260-acre “upper” site.

Saying the risks to children who would one day attend school in the area were too great, Cascade Gateway asked DDES and the consultants who wrote both the draft environmental impact statement and the FEIS, URS Corp., formerly Dames and Moore, to consider using Exit 38 near the Washington State Patrol Fire Training Academy. From Exit 38, trucks would have access to the upper site.

In the FEIS, the consultants state using Exit 38 to access the mine involves “the use of lands that are not presently owned or controlled by Cadman Inc. The State Environmental Policy Act does not require a private applicant to consider off-site alternatives.”

However, studies were commissioned to look at building access roads from Exit 38 along the northern and southern slopes of Grouse Ridge to the upper site, but they would contain “logistical challenges, substantial permitting issues and environmental risks far exceeding those of Cadman’s proposal,” according to the FEIS.

Martine said it was wrong not to consider Exit 38, adding that because King County and the state Department of Natural Resources signed the memorandum of understanding the project is public, not private.

“Every alternative has to be included in the EIS, unless it’s a private process,” he said. “How can it be considered private if the state lands commissioner and the county executive sign off on the [memorandum of understanding]?

“We’re prepared to point that out in court,” he added.

Cadman plans to mine Grouse Ridge in 50-acre sections, giving the entire operation an expected 25-year lifespan. Following that, Cadman would regrade the site and plant trees, and then Weyerhaeuser would donate the land to the county.

Martine said since the county has something to gain by grant-ing the grading permit, Cascade Gateway and the Grouse Ridge Legal Fund might challenge the decision in federal court. That differs from the usual appeal process where a project goes before a county hearing examiner, and if that decision is appealed, on to the Superior Court.

Robin Hansen, project manager for Cadman, was out of the office and unavailable for comment before the Valley Record’s publication deadline, but in an earlier story she said if Cadman received the grading permit, it would begin construction of the mining operation even as the decision to grant the permit is appealed.

You can reach Barry Rochford at (425) 888-2311, or e-mail him at barry.rochford@valley

record.com.