The City of Pitt Meadows will be telling the province it doesn’t support the expansion of a quarry further into a hill in the northern part of the municipality.

Council made the recommendation at a committee meeting Tuesday after reviewing a staff report that detailed the expansion of Pitt River Quarries’ gravel mine.

The expansion would allow Lafarge Canada Inc. to continue mining at the site for another 10 to 15 years and move the mine to within 15 metres from the east property boundary – 100 metres from the nearest houses on scenic Sheridan Hill.

As a result, excavation will be seen from the southwest side of Sheridan Hill, from Harris, McNeil and Richardson roads and all of the properties in that area of northern Pitt Meadows.

Council is concerned by how close the expansion will bring the mine to homes.

“I can’t imagine someone blasting something that close to my house,” said Mayor Don MacLean.

“We have endured the quarry being there, but I am sure people in the area are looking forward to the day when trucks are not coming up and down the road so often.”

A municipality cannot regulate mining operations, which fall under the jurisdiction of the province. The province, however, evaluates each mining application individually and does allow municipalities to submit comments.

While responses from municipalities, by themselves, are unlikely to determine the fate of a mining operation, they are taken into account when the ministry evaluates the application.

Meanwhile, residents of Sheridan Hill are organizing their opposition to the mine’s expansion.

Brent Richards, who lives on Sheridan Drive, has contacted provincial ministers, the federal member of parliament and plans to set up a website.

“We need anybody who values this area to fight against it,” said Richards.

He encourages those opposed to attend and speak at Pitt Meadow council meeting on Tuesday at city hall. The meeting starts at 7 p.m.

The quarry’s current operation covers 54.7 hectares. The proposed expansion would include an additional 15.8 hectares, bringing the total operation area to 70.5 hectares.

Lafarge Canada assures that a buffer of trees will be kept to block the view and that expansion will not encroach onto the Sheridan Hill subdivision.

Legend has it

• Sheridan Hill is one of several locations purported to be the site of Slumach’s lost gold mine. Slumach was a Katzie man who reportedly discovered a large cache of the shiny metal in the late 1800s. He was hanged for shooting a Métis man and took the gold mine’s location to his grave.

• According to Katzie legend, the original inhabitants of Pitt Meadows descend primarily from Oe’lecten and his people, who were created on the south shore of Pitt Lake, and Swaneset and his people, created at Sheridan Hill.

The legend says Swaneset travelled to the sky, and returned to earth with a wife, setting down again on the peak of Sheridan Hill. From the pieces of Sheridan Hill, Swaneset created many of the distinctive hills that mark the countryside between the Fraser River and Pitt Lake.