By Miriam Raftery / East County Magazine / May 20, 2025
Years after the Cottonwood Sand Mine was first proposed along the Sweetwater River on the site of the Cottonwood Golf course in Rancho San Diego, the San Diego County Planning Commission will hold a hearing on the proposed sand mine. The latest draft environmental impact report can be viewed here .
The hearing, originally set for April, will now be held Friday, June 13 at 9a.m. at the San Diego County Operations Center hearing room, 5520 Overland Ave., San Diego.
The Valle de Oro Community Panning Group in March voted 10-1 to oppose the controversial project, with one abstention, as ECM reported. (Rag repost here.)
The plan calls for mining 4.7 million cubic yards with nearly 3.8 million cubic yards (or 5.7 million tons) of washed concrete sand (construction aggregate) produced over 10 years. The mining would be done in phases with reclamation planned after each phase, for a total of 12 years of activity.
The developer has said that the sand is needed for highways and construction locally, to reduce the need to import sand for such projects.
Thousands of residents have signed petitions and voiced opposition to the project, voicing concerns over water and air pollution, noise, traffic, impacts on local wildlife, potential property value declines, and more.
The Stop Cottonwood Sand Mine group is leading opposition, urging concerned residents to attend the meeting. The group also raising funds on their website for legal experts to review the latest environmental impact report, after an earlier EIR was rejected as flaws and recirculated to the community
I think there used to be a giant gravel pit on a stretch of land between 163 and 805 along
Friars Rd. It’s where Civitas is now, & the malls along Frazee Rd. There may be some
extant records regarding the health hazards of that business. As I recall all that hillside
was excavated nearly all the way to Murray Ridge Rd. There ought to be some correlations
prevalent between these two projects/areas.
Yes, there were quarries where Civitas is now, most of that north side of Friars was part of those quarries. But, they mined rock. Where CostCo is, H.G.Fenton had a large concrete company and a sand mining operation. A huge amount of concrete manufacturing waste was removed and taken to Miramar before the area could be used.
The problem is sand, which is essential in construction. Any that was easily available ran out long ago in the county. They tried to broker a deal to import sand from Mexico but I seem to remember that deal fell apart for some reason.
Cottonwood would really fulfill a glaring need. Imported sand cost much more and the cost is passed along to the buyers. That needs to be weighed against the complaints against the project that would represent a fraction of county.
In fact, the first development at Civitas had “Quarry” in its name but had trouble selling units.
So we have no sand in the County? Perhaps there are areas in east county with alluvial sands that could supply the county for a part of the future. Not a geologist, but it seems that this is a large county & there ought to be places to mine sand. What about all those dunes near Yuma? Probably State protected land, yes?
This Cottonwood project is concerning, especially considering all the truck traffic generated daily.
Update:
250 plus people waited for an hour in-person while the County tried to fix last minute technical difficulties related to the on-line participation, before they pulled the plug and canceled. Rescheduled tentatively for July 11.
We’re disappointed, but will regroup and get a great turnout a month from now.
thanks to Barry Jantz