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Jul-05-2006 15:20 From-DIVISION OF LAND RESOURCE PROTECTION 19163273430 T-588 P.002/004 F-807 Mr. Chandler Martin, Deputy Director July 5, 2006 Page 2 of 4 eight to eighteen yee_rs respectively. The excavated pits will be reclaimed to agricultural crops and groundwater recharge, whereas the slopes will be reclaimed to fescue and clover. Proiect Impacts on F.gricultural Land The DER has determined that impacts to agriculture are less than significant because reclamation will retul n the land to agricultural use. However, the DEIR states that 140 acres of agricultural land, including 101 acres of Prime Farmland, will he permanently lost to benches and slopas that will not support crops and orchard production. Generally, the conversion of this amount of important farmland would be considered :i significant impact. The Department rec)mmends that the Final EIR (FEIR) specifically evaluate the significance of this conversion and propose mitigation as discussed below. Williamson Act Lancs Mineral extraction is not an agricultural use and is not compatible with the Williamson Act except under very limited circumstances. In most cases, the contract must be terminated prior to commencing a mining project. Government Code section 512:38.2 gives local governments the discretion to approve mineral extraction on Williamson Act lands that cannot meet the compatibility test under section 51238.1 if the Board of Supervisors finds that the activity will riot significantly impair the contractual commitment to preserve agricultural land and the contracted land is reclaimed according to the SMARA reclamation standards for prime or other agricultural land as determined by its pre-mined condition. It is unlikely that long--arm or large scale mining operations can meet pert one of the 51238.2 test by showing no significant impairment to the contractual commitment to preserve agriculture, lands, while operations of a short-term and small scale nature, including phased mining with concurrent reclamation, may be able to meet this burden of proof. Plant sites, however, are not compatible uses on contracted lands unless they are z of a temporary, motile nature. While they are associated with mining, they are not mineral extraction as that te'm is used in Section 51238.2 and may avoid SM/,RA standards through industrial zoning. On page 4.3-4, the DFIR states that sections 51238.1 and 51238.2 do not apply to the subject project because the contract was entered into prior to June 7, 1994 as proscribed in section 51238.3. However, it is critical to note that the exception under section 51238.3 only applies to uses that constituted a "compatible use" as that term "as defined by the Williamson Act at the time the contract was signed. It is the Departme nt's determination that the mining of 1,11;6 acres of prime agricultural land in two phases of approximately the same amount of land would not have been considered a compatible use under the Act at the time the subject contract was signed, sometime in 1976. Nor does the Department consider the mining project a compatible use under sections 51238.1 or 51238.2. In addition, the fact thin the slopes and benches and a portion of the excavated pit will not be reclairied to prime ;agricultural land under SMARA standards does not comply with reclamation of contracted land under section 51238.2.