A state environmental commission upheld a decision to suspend two permits for gravel mining at Crooked Creek in Marion County Friday.

Guy King & Sons Inc., a Mountain Home sand and gravel company, appealed Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality’s decision made in January. The Arkansas Pollution and Ecology Commission upheld ADEQ’s decision after an administrative hearing and order.

The company can appeal to Marion County Circuit Court, but a decision has not been made whether to appeal again, said Roger Morgan of Mountain Home, one of the attorneys representing Guy King & Sons. He had no comment about the case.

In January, ADEQ suspended five in-stream gravel mining permits out of concern for possible negative environmental impact. Two of the suspended permits belonged to Guy King & Sons and three belonged to Mountain Home Concrete.

A segment of Crooked Creek from Clear Creek to the White River was put on the state’s list of Impaired Water Bodies in 2004 because of higher water temperatures, which environmental officials attribute to in-stream mining.

Guy King & Sons filed an appeal at the end of January and Mountain Home Concrete did not appeal, said Doug Szenher, ADEQ spokesman.

In an administrative hearing conducted in May, Guy King & Sons argued that in-stream gravel mining performed under the state’s regulations would not harm the environment, according to a post-trial brief filed by Morgan and Ted Sanders of Mountain Home, representing Guy King & Sons.

They also stated other factors can impact water temperature, including city wastewater discharges, industrial discharges and stormwater runoff. An ADEQ official countered those factors, stating that wastewater discharge at one of the testing points was downstream, the temperature of discharges are regulated and stormwater runoff is cooler than the higher temperatures that were tested.

During the hearing, Dr. Arthur V. Brown, professor of biological sciences at the University of Arkansas, said that gravel mining is destructive to streams because it makes the banks wider, which makes the water more shallow and prone to higher temperatures.

Brown, who wrote a study on gravel mining in 1992, testified on behalf of the Friends of the North Fork and White Rivers and the Crooked Creek Coalition, which joined the hearing after filing a motion to intervene. Brown also stated gravel mining impacts the creek upstream, because the gravel moves downstream to replace lost gravel.

The area where Guy King & Sons mines gravel in-stream, which is east of the State Highway 14 bridge near Yellville, is dry most of the year.

Guy King & Sons stated it has management practices in place that were adopted from Brown’s recommendations, which include limiting mining to certain times of the year, mining only in a dry stream bed and not using vehicles on stream banks. While Guy King & Sons has been cited for violating commission regulations three or four times, according to the order, the post-trial brief stated that none of the violations were in the areas with these two permits.

The administrative hearing officer, Michael O’Malley, found that the increase in Crooked Creek’s water temperature was due to gravel mining and that ADEQ had cause to suspend the permits, according to the order.

Find More Other News : Company, Exploration, Mining Finance, Mining Investment, Mining Top News