Renewal of Nutter permit in Cowlitz County criticized

LONGVIEW — Rob and Alessa Beringer have been in a decadelong fight with their rural neighbor, a Vancouver-based surface mining company they say has trashed the area north of their Ostrander-area home and stallion horse ranch. And they say Cowlitz County failed to hold the company accountable.

Among their allegations are that Nutter Corp. has flouted Cowlitz County rules by:

• Tracking oil and mud over West Stock Road.

• Operating at all hours of the day, sometimes as early as 2 a.m.

• Illegally transporting and dumping vacuum truck waste at the site.

• Operating on-and-off for five years after its permit expired.

Cowlitz County Hearing Examiner Mark Scheibmeir last month agreed with the Beringers when he ruled on Nutter’s application for a new permit to mine dredge materials at the 60-acre site, located at 3515 Pleasant Hill Road north of Kelso.

“For the past 10 years, the applicant has, at best, been unimpressive and, at worst, has been openly hostile to governmental regulation. Further, the applicant displays no remorse or repentance for this misconduct. There is no basis for any confidence that the applicant will fully abide by the terms of a new permit,” Scheibmeir wrote in his July 25 ruling.

And yet, Cowlitz County planners recommended another permit for the Vancouver-based contractor, and Scheibmeir approved it for five years.

“It’s ludicrous,” Rob Beringer told The Daily News. “It’s inconceivable that the county still approved the permit after all of these offenses and violations.”

Compliance a priority

The Beringers say the case calls into question the willingness of the county Department of Building and Planning to enforce its regulations, and it signals to other companies that they don’t need to follow the rules, either.

Building and Planning Director Elaine Placido said that her agency’s foremost goal is to bring businesses into compliance before considering legal action. Her decision whether to recommend a permit is based on a two-page ordinance governing surface mining, she said.

“If they are able to demonstrate they can comply with (performance standards), and we think that they can, then we have to recommend approval (of a permit),” Placido said. “I don’t have the luxury to make decisions based on what I think. I have to make decisions based on the standards required by law.”

However, Placido’s department received several complaints since 2010, including lengthy ones from the Beringers, alleging that Nutter was not complying with conditions outlined in its 2007 special-use permit.

Jerry Nutter, president of Nutter, did not return multiple email messages and phone calls for comment on this story.

The excessive truck traffic, noise and dust brought an end to the Beringers’ cowgirl camps and Victorian teas. And when Nutter starts operating again, its disruptive practices will likely put their horse hotel and bed-and-breakfast out of business, Alessa Beringer said.

The Beringers bought their property in 1975 and lost everything to the mud flows that sloshed down the Cowlitz River from the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. They were the first area residents to rebuild along the river after the eruption, only to have their barn later burn to the ground with two of their horses inside. Over the years, two of their children died at the property.

The Beringers say Nutter failed to control dust or mud from its operations, stem the growth of Scotch broom on the property or obey the truck load limits during its five-year permit and after the permit expired in 2012.

‘Reward … for its misconduct’

Placido said her department sent Nutter many letters during those years asking the company to get back into compliance. Other complaints, like the road conditions and Scotch broom, were handled by other departments, she said.

The Beringers say county public works crews came out to clean up the roads Nutter trucks muddied. “That’s taxpayer dollars,” Alessa Beringer said.

After years of the county trying to get Nutter back into compliance, Nutter eventually applied for a new permit in 2016.

During the July 25 public hearing on Nutter’s application, Placido recommended approving Nutter’s request for a 20-year permit. She says she was just passing along Nutter’s request and agreed with Scheibmeir’s decision to reduce the permit to five years. But the Beringers said they were outraged.

Seven other people also spoke during the public hearing, all in opposition to granting Nutter another permit, according to hearing documents.

Scheibmeir declined to comment for this story, but he wrote in his decision that the neighbors are “understandably frustrated over the lack of county enforcement and cannot understand how approval of a new permit can be seen as anything other than a reward to the applicant for its misconduct.”

However, he ruled that the interests of the public were best served by granting the special-use permit so the dredge material could be removed and the land could be returned to agricultural use. The permit won’t be renewed after five years, “barring exceptional circumstances,” according to Scheibmeir.

While neither Scheibmeir nor Placido seem optimistic that Nutter will change its practices in the future, both argued that the recently approved special-use permit will provide greater oversight and enforcement.

Rob Beringer said he and his wife plan to appeal the permit in civil court.

“This is stressful. When you go to bed thinking about it, and you wake up thinking about it, and you spend all day talking and thinking about it, that isn’t right and that isn’t fair. That’s what they’ve done to us.”