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%peration that closed in the 1980s, even though no state or local regulations existed to compel such an effort. But in February 1990, Pegasus struck water while drilling an exploratory shaft, forcing the company to file state applications for groundwater appropriation and for &watering the mine shaft. In June, the state engineer ordered a halt to mining activities. This respite allowed citizen groups opposed to the mine to muster their forces for a total revision of the existing county mining regulations. In response, the county commission enacted a 180-day moratorium on exploratory mine permits that took effect in August 1990. During that hiatus, a special task force was to draft an amendment to the county zoning ordinance. The task force included citizens, county planners, mining officials, and industry representatives. Because of what McGowan and others discreetly describe as "difficult personalities," the revision process, by all accounts, became remarkably contentious and polarized, with quorums failing to materialize as the deadline for reviewing the draft ordinance neared. McGowan recalls "demonstrations, TV cameras, conflict, and antagonism on the planning committee" before a subcommit- tee worked out final ordinance language at the last minute. In the end, the county commissioners themselves conducted a 26-hour hearing over two days before adopting two amendments in Januaty 1991. One deals with mineral exploration and extraction, the other with zoning for extraction of construction materials. One of the toughest issues Santa Fe County had to face, according to McGowan, was how a county planning staffcould use its zoning authority to compensate for the lack of state mining regulations. Most counties, she observes, do not have the depth of environmental expertise that state regulatory agencies possess. In the end, the task force solution was to tap the community's expertise through an unpaid mining plans review board (MPRB) appointed by the county commissioners. The board is empowered to review "all operations, reclamation and environmental assessment plans, and environmental impact statements" and make recommendations to county officials on each case. Besides two citizen members, the MPRB must include: a hydrogeologist; a graduate-level mining engineer; a faculty member from the New Mexico Institute of Technology's mining department; a staff member of the local Soil and Water Conservation District; a professional biologist or ecologist; a specialist in socioeconomic analysis; and a staffmember of the state Game and Fish Department. One paragraph requires any member of the MPRB with a potential interest in an applica- tion before the board to disclose that conflict of interest before consideration of the permit begins. Other provisions of the new ordinance require financial warranties of performance to ensure compliance with the perfor- mance standards, security requirements, and reclamation agree- ments that are spelled out in each company's permit. Detailed sections of the 50-page ordinance spell out the types of reporu and application information that mining companies must submit for proposed operations, including the contents of environmental assessments. Those assessments must: describe the location and size of the area affected; provide an inventory of existing environmental conditions on the site including flood zones, geologic hazards, wildlife habitat, and soil types; and describe the chemical substances and mining methods to be used. In addition, the company must specify any National Register or archaeological sites or parks or cultural resources on the land to be mined, as well as any endan- gered species, prime farmland, or wild and scenic riven. In short, the regulations contain many of the details one might expect to see in state or federal mining regulations. To date, the ordinance remains untested, perhaps in part because permit delays caused Pegasus, which had spent $19 million on the project, to fail to meet the terms of its participation agree- ment, and the lease reverted to LAC Minerals. However, McGowan expects LAC Minerals to return "before long" for an exploration permit to resume its activities. In the meantime, however, the increasingly knowledgeable citizen groups struck their own gold in this spring's state legislative session by winning passage of a new law regulating hard-rock mining. It will still take another year or two, however, for the state EID to formulate and approve regulations to implement the lag,, which focuses on preventing pollution and restoring the land for post-mining use. McGowan says that the debate over state preemption of local regulations like'those in Santa Fe County was resolved by the statute's silence on this point. The lack of any statement on preemption presumably leaves the county ordinance in force. Stone Quarries in Nashville, Tennessee Hoover Inc. has a problem. The Tennessee limestone firm lost its former quarry site in Nashville-Davidson County (a consolidated metropolitan government) to the expanding Nashville International Airport, which acquired the site in 1988 through eminent domain. That left the firm with two other quarries in counties to the southeast, but no site in the immediate Nashville area. For a high- volume, low-value building material like limestone, hauling costs can be extremely high and a major competitive factor, notes Shawn R. Henry, senior planner for the Metropolitan Planning Commis- sion. Thus, Hoover wanted to find a new site that would let it compete with other local quarries. The problem is that urban uses in Nashville are encroaching on the less developed areas where existing quarries have operated. Moreover, Nashville's current zoning ordinance provides uncertain guidance on the location of such uses. Sawmills, mines, and quarries are permitted in four districts: general industrial, restricted indus- trial, general commercial, and agricultural. But the section on "saw- mills, mining, and quarrying activities" also states that the area in which such ~es are located shall be "sparsely developed and likely to remain sparsely developed" during the anticipated period of opera- tion. In practice, Henry says, the planning commission has followed build-out projections in the 20-year plan in judging applications, but the ordinance clearly "leaves a lot of room for interpretation." This is not a story about a jurisdiction that has resolved this problem, but about an ongoing debate that will likely lead to a new ordinance in the near future. Nashville's zoning, Henry says, has not kept up with its growth, which obviously has been accompa~ . hied by the growth ora major regional airport. Many fast-growing areas are still classified agricultural. The airport authority, Henry notes, tried to find a new location for Hoover within its land holdings but chose not to make the main alternative available because of concerns that it might conflict with future airport plans. The Board of Zoning Appeals, which rules on the planning commission's recommendations, has rejected two other county sites Hoover has proposed. In both cases, the proposed quarry conflicted with-anticipated residential and commercial growth. At present, a draft ordinance requested by one metropolitan council member is undergoing legal review. It would specify density criteria for areas eligible to host a quarry. The proposed standard sets amaximum average of 450 dwelling units per square mile within a one-mile radius of the proposed quarry, m~ne, or sawmill. It would limit conditional use permits for quarry operations to five years and require a traffic plan for distribution and delivery routes. Although it would require compliance with state and federal codes pertaining to mining nuisances such as blasting, noise, and vibrations, Henry notes