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About Canyon Rock’s Planned Asphalt Facility

Thank you to all those who attended our initial community open house meetings on April 26 and 27, 2023!

For those who were unable to attend our community meetings, we featured a series of informational poster boards that were displayed to those in attendance. You can view those boards by clicking here.

You can also access a video simulation played at our community meetings by clicking here. Please note: this video simulation is preliminary and was prepared to serve as a tool to verify that the project as designed would be shielded from public views along HWY 116.  It is not intended to be photo-realistic, but rather, gives viewers a sense as to the size and scale of the project as seen from the roadway.  The facility pad elevation is lower than the highway and the intervening topographic screening largely prevents views (even without considering the existing vegetation or additional landscaping). Detailed photographic simulations will be prepared in the future according to County requirements to demonstrate the project meets scenic corridor standards.

Overview

  • Plan would construct a state-of-the-art hot mix asphalt (HMA) facility using Best Available Control Technology (BACT) to minimize odor and emissions at the Canyon Rock Co. quarry site in Pocket Canyon.
  • The asphalt facility would be a complementary use of the existing hard rock quarry, which has been in continuous operation for more than 80 years and includes two concrete ready-mix plants and a concrete/asphalt recycling facility
    • An asphalt facility was permitted at the site in 1957 near the Green Valley Creek corridor, but Canyon Rock would rather re-permit a more modern and environmentally-superior project further west at the quarry site.
  • The project would establish the only asphalt production facility in western Sonoma County, providing for direct transport of asphalt to local roadwork and other surfaces such as parking lots
    • Currently, aggregate must be hauled east to Santa Rosa-area asphalt facilities, only to come back in separate trucks to West County paving projects.
  • The plan is not proposing to increase the existing annual export from the quarry — asphalt would simply replace the currently exported raw aggregate materials.
  • No change in export and the elimination of some of the trips east to Santa Rosa means a decrease in the number of truck trips through Forestville with an asphalt facility at the quarry site.

Benefits

  • Project would reduce truck trips along local area roadways east of the quarry by creating asphalt on-site, instead of hauling to other locations in Santa Rosa or beyond to produce asphalt, only to drive that hot asphalt mix back to West County in separate trucks.
  • Project would establish the only co-located aggregate production and asphalt production site in Sonoma County, reducing regional traffic and emissions relative to asphalt facilities that must import aggregate from more distant locations
    • This use would complement the only ready-mix operation in Sonoma County co-located with the aggregate.
  • Project would reduce greenhouse gas emissions relative to other asphalt facilities by constructing a new, state-of-the-art facility.
  • Facility would complement Canyon Rock’s broader greenhouse gas emissions reduction strategy, which established a microgrid on-site adjacent to the asphalt facility as an incidental use by using electricity in part from on-site solar energy as well as newly installed batteries
    • In time, this power source could potentially serve as a microgrid to share its energy resources with the Forestville community in the event of future power disruptions.