Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.
Please log in, or sign up for a new account to continue reading. Electric Blast Furnace
Thank you for reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.
Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.
Please purchase a subscription to continue reading.
Your current subscription does not provide access to this content.
Sorry, no promotional deals were found matching that code.
Promotional Rates were found for your code.
Lots of sunshine. High 41F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph..
A few passing clouds, otherwise generally clear. Low 27F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.
Pacific Steel Group has proposed a micro mill to produce steel rebar to be built near Mojave.
Mark Olson, vice president of mill operations for Pacific Steel Group, spoke to members of the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council on Nov. 1. The company has proposed a $540 million micro mill facility to produce steel rebar to be built south of Mojave.
Pacific Steel Group has proposed a micro mill to produce steel rebar to be built near Mojave.
Mark Olson, vice president of mill operations for Pacific Steel Group, spoke to members of the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council on Nov. 1. The company has proposed a $540 million micro mill facility to produce steel rebar to be built south of Mojave.
Kern County may need to decide whether economic or other benefits offset unavoidable environmental risks in order to approve a proposed $540 million steel mill near Mojave.
The Kern County Planning Commission is expected to review the environmental impacts of the proposed Mojave Micro Mill Project at its meeting on Feb. 8. A public hearing during the meeting seeks comments on the adequacy and completeness of the analysis and proposed mitigation measures described in the draft Environmental Impact Report released in November. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. in the Board of Supervisors chambers, Kern County Administrative Center, 1115 Truxtun Ave., Bakersfield.
The development would include an approximate 489,200-square-foot steel mill facility with an additional 61,721 square feet of accessory buildings and structures, for a total of 550,921 square feet. The proposed project would include an approximate 63-acre accessory solar array on 174 total acres of privately owned land included in the proposed project site.
Mark Olson, vice president of mill operations for Pacific Steel Group, provided information about the project to the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council in November. He was also slated to address the Kern County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce about the project in Bakersfield on Jan. 8.
Pacific Steel Group is one of the largest reinforcing steel subcontractors in the country. It operates in the Pacific Northwest, Nevada, Arizona and California. About 75% of the company’s work is in the private sector and 25% in the public sector.
“We fabricate and install reinforcing steel for major infrastructure projects and major commercial projects throughout the West Coast,” Olson said during his presentation in Tehachapi. “That's things like parking structures, commercial high-rise buildings, bridges, pumping stations, water treatment plants, and so on.”
All of that steel must be brought into California from elsewhere, Olson said, because currently there is no steel manufacturing in the state. His company hopes to change that. The ambitious project would use state-of-the-art technology to transform junk cars and other iron and steel scrap material into concrete-reinforcing rebar. A solar component would create part of the energy needed on site.
He said his company currently employs about 100 people at its corporate office in San Diego. When the micro mill is complete, those employees will join another 300 production workers at the new facility.
The project site is comprised of a total of two individual parcels located about halfway between Mojave and Rosamond. The land is bordered on the west by Sierra Highway and on the east by 10th Street West. Its northern border is Sopp Road.
The draft EIR identifies less-than-significant impacts — and those that can be mitigated to less than significant — and significant and unavoidable impacts. The environmental documentation comprises more than 5,000 pages in four volumes.
Impacts identified as significant and unavoidable include:
• Aesthetics — potentially significant visual impacts — “the conversion of a presently rural desert area to industrial and solar development cannot be mitigated to the degree that impacts are no longer significant.”
• Air quality — significant and unavoidable — “Despite implementation of mitigation measures … operation of the project exceeds the project level regulatory thresholds … (and) would contribute to a long-term cumulative increase in criteria pollutants.”
• Biological resources — less than significant (with mitigation) on a project level but significant and unavoidable when considered with the number of present and reasonably foreseeable future development projects in the Antelope Valley.
• Noise — significant and unavoidable — on a project level and cumulatively.
• Wildfire — with mitigation, the project impact would be less than significant — but because the location is subject to high winds with limited surrounding infrastructure, the project and related projects have the potential to result in a cumulative impact. “When considered with the number of present and reasonably foreseeable future development projects in the Antelope Valley, would result in the increased exposure of pollutant concentrations from a wildfire or the uncontrolled spread of a wildfire.”
The draft EIR also considered project alternatives, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act.
In addition to approval from Kern County, the project may require permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, CDFW, Caltrans and Eastern Kern Air Pollution Control District.
For Kern County, project requirements include a general plan amendment, zone change, conditional use permits, precise development plan and zone variances.
In cases where a proposed development has significant and unavoidable environmental impacts that cannot be mitigated, state law requires the decision-making agency “to balance, as applicable, the economic, legal, social, technological, or other benefits, including region-wide or statewide environmental benefits, of a proposed project against its unavoidable environmental risks when determining whether to approve the project.”
The law states that if the specific benefits outweigh the unavoidable adverse environmental effects, the adverse environmental effects may be considered acceptable.
Scoping for the draft EIR was initiated in October 2022 with letters to property owners within 1,000 feet of the project boundary and other interested parties.
Among the responses was a letter from Julie Vance, regional manager for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Vance noted that the project area is within the geographic range of several special-status species including the desert tortoise, Swainson’s hawk, Mohave ground squirrel, Crotch bumblebee, western Joshua tree, alkali Mariposa lily, recurved larkspur, burrowing owl, American badger, Townsend’s big-eared bat, short-eared owl, Le Conte’s thrasher and loggerhead shrike — along with other special-status plant species.
The 10-page letter from CDFW included recommendations for monitoring and other steps if the project moves forward.
The Kern Audubon Society provided comment during the scoping period with a Nov. 17, 2022, letter stating that biological surveys must be performed during the appropriate time of year to discern species present. The organization expressed specific concern for Swainson’s hawk.
Edwards Air Force Base and several county agencies also responded, along with two neighboring property owners.
One neighbor to the property, Alvaro Gutierrez, said he was not against construction of the mill but noted that he and other neighbors already suffer from impacts from explosions at nearby mining operations and were concerned that the mill would add more risks. Another neighboring property owner, Robert Stonehill, had questions about the location of the proposed solar array.
According to meeting minutes, no one other than county staff and project representatives was present at the scoping meeting on Nov. 18, 2022.
More information about Pacific Steel Group and its Mojave Micro Mill Project is online at pacificsteelgroup.com.
Kern County’s environmental documents for the project are online at bit.ly/3RJzFWS.
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos.
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.
Metal Forming Your browser is out of date and potentially vulnerable to security risks. We recommend switching to one of the following browsers: