Robust citizen opposition led the Levy County Board of County Commissioners to hit the pause button on approving an 1,100-acre sand mine on land currently zoned agriculture/rural residential (ARR) and rural residential (RR). 

The decision came at a quasi-judicial public hearing on Dec. 5. The applicant, Williston resident Ryan Thomas, requested a special exception that would allow the sand mine on land he owns.  

The Levy County Commission chamber was standing room only at the start of the 9 a.m. meeting, and commissioners set aside a stack of public comment forms for the topic many residents had come to speak against.  

The sand mine proposal includes about 400 acres for mining sand and another 713 for ingress/egress for sand trucks. The land is currently made up of residential lots, vacant lots, pastureland, cropland and accessory farming structures. 

Douglas VanDeursen, president of DNM Engineering Associates, Inc., presented the application to the commission on Thomas’ behalf. He said the main intent for the operation is to level Thomas’ land for farming purposes.  

The mining would be mechanical, not using blasting or fracking, and would terminate after 45 years, unless it was renewed. It would send out about 75 trucks of sand each day, each truck making the trip out and back in.  

The sand truck traffic raised many community members’ concerns over how the trucks would affect the roads, and how the cost would trickle down onto taxpayers’ shoulders. Commissioner John Meeks clarified that road repair funding comes from gas taxes, which are not specific to Levy County, but citizens also said the trucks would make traffic on the road more dangerous.  

Trucks were not the only complaint cited by the 32 anti-sand mine public commenters. For hours, citizens lined up with concerns about quality of life for their neighbors, water safety, accountability, property values and health.  

Several citizens stated outright that if the sand mine is approved, they will have to leave their homes and move somewhere else, simply for their health. 

Others mentioned water safety, noting that the proposal would dig down 76 feet, and the drinking water’s seasonal high is 79 feet. 

Though a few commissioners and two public commenters said Thomas has the right to do what he wants with his property, citizens pushed back, saying that allowing the sand mine would infringe on their own rights and safety. 

“My personal feeling is that Mr. Thomas is asking the community to take a backseat to what will benefit him, and I don’t see this as a benefit to the community,” citizen Tom Callahan told the board. 

The mine would be about 550 feet from the University of Florida’s Rosemary Hill Observatory, according to Elizabeth Lada, chair of the UF astronomy department, who attended the meeting with multiple astronomy students. They told the commission a sand mine would disrupt the dark sky the observatory needs, vibrations would damage equipment alignment and airborne sand particles would ruin their equipment. 

The astronomy students and faculty at the meeting predicted that if the sand mine begins operations in its proposed location, Lada said the 56-year-old observatory would likely shut down. 

“While sand mines can be placed in numerous locations across the state, the property conditions for an astronomical observatory are far more rare,” graduate student William Schap told the commission. “Meaning that once Rosemary Hill has been shut down due to the dust and sand from the proposed sand mine, Florida may never see such a great observatory again.” 

Lada said the Rosemary Hill facility represents an investment of over $3 million and is uniquely situated in one of the darkest places in Florida. 

Rosemary Hill representatives also told the commission the observatory is an educational facility, which the county code requires the sand mine be at least 660 feet away from, with appropriate buffers. Without the buffer, it would need to be a quarter mile away. 

The county staff also provided a list of seven recommended conditions for Thomas’ proposal, to which the Levy County Planning Commission added 15, making 22 total conditions for Thomas to meet. One condition included a limit of 45 years of mining, which can only be executed 20 acres at a time, returning those acres to agricultural use after they have been mined. 

Community members also raised concerns over what could happen if Thomas got his sand mine approved, then sold it.  

The special exception runs with the land, unless the commission at this time puts a specific limitation on the timeframe. The new owner would still have to comply with the same limitations.  

However, public comments often circled back to a common theme of not wanting to ruin the peace of an urban environment. 

When all those waiting had given their public comment, the commissioners addressed their concerns. Several apologetically pointed to the quasi-judicial proceeding’s requirements that the commission’s role be simply to rule whether the zoning special exception is legal. Though the burden of proof is on the applicant, Thomas, the commission would need fact-based reasons to reject his application 

“This is not an open and shut case,” Chair Matt Brooks said. “We are hired to be impartial and if you came with a petition, you’d want to be treated the exact same way.” 

As the commission’s discussion leaned toward an approval of the proposal, a citizen stood up and asked, “Why are we here?” He complained that if the commission could only approve a list of checked boxes that was handed to them, there was no purpose to the hours of public comment they had just heard. 

Several other citizens chimed in, and soon the chamber had turned into an informal back-and-forth between commissioners and citizens, who condensed and restated their arguments without the more sentimental aspects of tranquility and rural nature. Instead, they focused on traffic dangers, the mine’s expected effects on neighbors’ rainfall and what happens if an operator accidentally digs deeper than the limit of three feet above the water level’s seasonal high, as well as a specific clause from the county code: 

“The proposed mining operation will not be detrimental to the area residents or businesses, or the public health, safety or welfare of the community as a whole,” Code section 50-719 (c) (11) says. 

After asking staff for a few clarifications and expressing general discomfort with voting on the proposal, the commission directed staff to table the item until Feb. 6 at 5 p.m. as a continuation of that date’s 9 a.m. meeting.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated.