OLIVIA -- Renville County's hard rock mining controversy is far from settled, even though Duininck Bros. Inc. of Prinsburg has complied with a county order to reclaim the rock quarry site in Beaver Falls Township near North Redwood Falls.
The Renville County Board of Commissioners adopted a resolution at its meeting Tuesday to "disallow'' a claim by Duininck Bros. for its reclamation costs. The company sent the county an invoice demanding $122,697.50 for its reclamation costs, and it was revealed at the meeting.
In their resolution disallowing the claim, the commissioners describe the invoice as not being a legitimate claim and charge the company with acting in "bad faith."
This most recent dispute over the hard rock mining operation dates to Oct. 1, the date at which Duininck Bros. was obligated to have completed a reclamation process ordered 17 months earlier. The county reported that an Oct. 2 inspection of the site found that some of the work had not been completed as required.
It ordered the company to complete the work.
ADVERTISEMENT
After the work was satisfactorily completed, the county received a $122,697.50 invoice from Duininck Bros.
In a letter accompanying the invoice, Duininck Bros. President Harris Duininck said the invoice represented costs that would not have been incurred until the material was sold. "DBI feels that the invoice is fair, accurate and should be paid by Renville County,'' he stated in the letter. The invoice includes costs for cleanup, equipment such as loaders and a crane, labor, topsoil and seeding.
The company followed with another invoice in November. The county's attorney for environmental issues, Scott Anderson, responded with a letter on Nov. 20.
Duininck has sent three invoices to the county to date. The most recent, due Dec. 30, includes $1,840.46 in finance charges along with the original $122,697.50 bill.
The county and company have been at odds over the issue since late 2005, when the company sought to renew its permit for hard rock mining operations in the quarry. In the process, the county discovered that the quarry was located in an area of the Minnesota River where hard rock mining is prohibited under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
The county did not renew the permit and ordered the company to begin its reclamation while allowing it to remove the aggregate already stockpiled there.
