Tiny rainbows arc over the fertile earth along the Foxen Canyon Wine Trail, catching the spray from rows of sprinklers as Union Asphalt's vineyard manager Jim Stollberg readies the land for this spring's planting of grape vines. It's hard to imagine that just a short time ago, this area was a gaping mine pit where giant bulldozers scraped away tons of sand and gravel needed for local construction projects.

The long view: This barren land will soon be transformed into a thriving vineyard with a mix of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and Voignier grapes. Union Asphalt plans to start planting the former mining basin this spring. PHOTO BY KATHY JOHNSON

Welcome to Union Asphalt's innovative reclamation project, where for the first time ever in California a productive gravel mine will be transformed into a productive vineyard.

Another former mining pit next to the Santa Maria River is being turned back into wildlife habitat, while neat rows of broccoli grow in a nearby riverside field that once provided truckloads of high quality concrete-grade rocks.

This is what's known in the mining industry as land reclamation in the Santa Maria Valley, where a longtime local company is doing its best to be a good neighbor.

"We're hometown boys. We want to leave it as good as we found it," explains Andy Hermreck, a co-owner of Union Asphalt and son of one of the founders of what is now the Central Coast's largest supplier of construction aggregate.

"It's going to be better!" chimes in fellow company owner Steve Will, another founder's son. "We don't want you to know we were ever there."

If you go to Sunday mass at the historic San Ramon Chapel on a hill overlooking the land, you'll never guess it was once a mine, according to Will.

All of this reclamation work is part of Union Asphalt's requirements under California's Surface Mining and Reclamation Act. Although the company first began mining the Santa Maria and Sisquoc riverbeds in 1957 as Coast Rock, increasingly stringent regulations led to the requirement for a detailed Environmental Impact Report, which was filed in 1997.

The two-volume, eight-inch thick report identifies various sensitive or endangered species in the 12-mile river corridor where the company sought a license to mine: red-legged frog, California horned lizard, Western spadefoot toad, Southwestern pond turtle, willow flycatcher, Least Bell's vireo, badger, and pallid bat.

Government agencies including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, California Department of Fish and Game, California Department of Conservation, and various county agencies in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties reviewed the report before a permit was granted for Union Asphalt's mining operation. The company is required by state law to reclaim the mined land for "beneficial use," but it's how Union Asphalt has defined the term beneficial that makes this a special project.

Mines to wines
On a recent sunny afternoon, the Sun joined Union Asphalt's team of reclamation consultants as they toured the river corridor to check out the company's progress, stopping at former mining areas now destined to become wildlife habitat, vegetable row crops, and a vineyard.

Near the intersection of Foxen Canyon Road and Rancho Sisquoc

Constructions source: Union Asphalt is the Central Coasts largest supplier of aggregate, the raw material that creates the concrete that builds our roads, houses, and buildings. PHOTO BY KATHY JOHNSON

Road, a barren field near the river is being prepared for growing wine-grape vines.

"It's a great vineyard site," says vineyard manager Stollberg as he tests the frost-control sprinkler system and looks for leaks in the drip irrigation lines crisscrossing the 36-acre former mining site now known as Riverbench Vineyard.

This spring, bare-root grape vines will be put in the ground, marking the company's first foray into the wine industry. Half of the vineyard will be Pinot Noir grapes, half Pinot Gris, with an acre of Viognier too. The grapes are likely to be sold to local winemakers.

"We've had a lot of interest in the fruit from this vineyard," Stollberg adds.

As part of the reclamation process, the topsoil was stockpiled several years ago before mining started on the site. The rich soil was later mixed with fine clay soil that was washed out of the gravel at the company's rock-sorting plant down the river. Earthmovers recently finished contouring the land that will soon become a vineyard, a gentle slope that falls away from Sisquoc Ranch Road to a vista of rolling hills across the river.

"You know, this is some of the better soil in this area, because they can put the soil back at a uniform rate. There isn't much rock, so it's easier to cultivate, with no deep ripping needed. I was surprised," Stollberg tells his visitors.

The wine-grape reclamation project has caught the eye of state regulators because of its originality.

"A vineyard is a great end use," says Jim Pompy, the head of the state Office of Mine Reclamation, speaking in a later phone interview from his Sacramento office. He says he wants to include information about the unique project in the agency's newsletter.

The touring group stops at another former Union Asphalt mine pit, down the river. This land has also been refilled with tons of soil and contoured into a sloping basin, now being planted with native vegetation. Cal Poly students under the direction of retired Cal Poly biology professor Dr. V.L. Holland are busy carrying out the task of planting, with a grant from Union Asphalt.

We're decorating the hillside with color," Holland tells the

Back to nature: A former mining pit near the Santa Maria River is being turned into wildlife habit with the help of a Cal Poly team including biology graduate student Kate Wilkin, pictured. PHOTO BY KATHY JOHNSON

"reclamation team, as he supervises his students' work.

"We looked at the environmental conditions, where we could plant what, and we ended up with 15 different species," he explains. "We're creating a natural gradient, just like in nature, with ceanothus from Nipomo on the upper part of the slope, coastal scrub and chaparral species on the slopes, oaks on the bottom where they can get into deep soil, and sycamores and cottonwood trees right at the toe of the slope."

Kneeling next to a hole dug into the ground, graduate student Kate Wilkin pulls a young coffeeberry plant from a gallon container and places it in a wire mesh gopher basket to protect it from ravaging rodents. She pops the plant and its basket into the earth and spreads soil around it with her fingers.

Down the slope, senior Mark Krist shovels some bark mulch around a young oak tree he's just planted as a red-tailed hawk soars overhead.

"It's been a wonderful learning experience," Krist tells the visitors. "It's rewarding to know you're benefiting the ecosystem and the community at large."

Even though it's recently rained, the bowl-shaped former mine pit is dry at the bottom. That's a marked contrast from last year, when a marshy wetland provided a stopping place for ducks and other waterfowl, according to Bob Kober, Union Asphalt vice president.

Plant species have been selected so just as in nature some flower in spring, some in summer, and some in winter.

The goal is to improve wildlife habitat in the former mine pit, and so far there have been sightings of a variety of native birds and insects, lizards, jackrabbits, raccoons, deer, and coyotes, Kober says.

The company brought in a former diesel tank washed clean of petroleum residues to use as a water tank for a gravity-fed drip irrigation system to help the young native plants become established.

Holland notes, "We're not just out here planting plants. We're trying to create natural cover, so in a few years people won't know we ever planted it."

It's a family thing
The Santa Maria River and floodplain has been designated by California's Division of Mines and Geology as a Mineral Resource Zone "with resources of regional and/or statewide significance." Its sand and gravel deposits are considered to be high quality, suitable for Portland Cement Concrete that meets local, state, and federal requirements for quality and consistency "so the concrete ends up strong," as Kober puts it.

Long local history: The biggest supplier of construction aggregates on the Central Coast, Union Asphalt wants its riverbed mining operations to be a good neighbor, according to company owners Andy Hermreck (left) and Steve Will (right). PHOTO BY KATHY JOHNSON

Thanks to what Kober calls "a million years of favorable geology," the surrounding mountains have washed into the riverbed and floodplain, where stormwaters have deposited larger-sized gravel upstream, and smaller rocks ground down during stormwater transport downstream.

The material, known in the trade as aggregates, has been used over the years to create the company's ready-mix concrete, produced at its plants in Santa Maria, Lompoc, and Solvang, as well as San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles. It's also used for road base and hot asphalt, Kober says.

"We're the biggest supplier of construction-grade aggregates on the Central Coast," he adds. It's been used to build local schools, roads, commercial developments, and housing projects.

San Luis Obispo County environmental planner Keith Miller reviewed the thick environmental study of Union Asphalt's Santa Maria mining operation, which straddles the county line. During his inspections of Union Asphalt's operations, he says he found the company to be in compliance with regulations.

"I gained respect for them," he says in a phone interview from his San Luis Obispo office.

"The regulatory environment for in-stream surface mines is complex. Union Asphalt appeared to have both the resources and the desire to comply with those regulations.

"They're a large enough company to have the resources to say, 'Tell us what to do, and we'll do it then leave us alone, and we'll mine,'" Miller notes.

He points out that a local source of these construction materials helps to reduce the traffic and air quality impacts that would be created by longer transport distances.

As the environmental report states, "The deposits will provide the long-term necessary supply of construction materials to the region. These materials are heavy and costly to transport, so an adequate local supply is important to the region."

The company's two founders, Jake Will and Mike Hermreck, recognized that fact when they started operations 50 years ago, after coming to Santa Maria from the Midwest in the 1930s.

Back in Union Asphalt's offices on East Donovan Road in Santa Maria, their sons are happy to talk about the business where they've worked all their lives.

Jake Will's son Steve sits in an office alongside Mike Hermreck's sons as he describes the company to an interested visitor.

The family connection is apparent, with a founding father beaming down from a photo on the wall between the desks of his two sons, Randy and Andy Hermreck. Miniature yellow toys sit atop tables in the office: excavators, loads, backhoes, trucks, "great for the grandkids," as Randy says.

Jake Will started Coast Rock, and Mike Hermreck started Hermreck Construction, and the two men joined as partners in 1957 to create a ready-mix concrete and construction aggregates business, he says. Both passed away in the '90s, leaving the company to their families.

"From before we were teenagers, we've been partners, working side-by-side," Steve Will explains. "You don't often find two families working well together the way we do. I can't say we've even had an argument. We work out disagreements."

What's their secret? "Our dads told us years ago that communication is key. They said, 'Don't let it fester. If you have a problem, talk about it,'" says Will, adding, "We meet every morning over coffee at 5:30 for an hour."

Says Andy Hermreck, "We're very hands-on. We all know what's happening. Things seem to work their own selves out everybody puts their heads together."

Third and even fourth generations of the two families also work at Union Asphalt, starting out during summers in high school.

"They get the idea of the culture of the company. They all start with a shovel in their hand. We all have. They don't start out in management," says Will.

The company voted "Business of the Year" by the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce in 2005 has 300 employees, half of whom have worked there more than 20 years, with quite a few multi-generational family employees.

"We're planting a vineyard in our mining area because it ties into the adjacent vineyards. It's the mining area we're most proud of. We don't want anybody talking anti-mining. We're very careful how we look from the road. We want to have the public behind us," says Will.

"We make a great effort to be the best stewards of the land we can be, especially in our industry. We put a lot of effort into seeing things done the way they should be."

Union Asphalt recently purchased the former Beringer vineyard on Foxen Canyon Road next door to its new Riverbench Vineyard in the former mining pit after leasing the mineral rights for Beringer's rocky soil. Once the Beringer-planted vines need replacing, the land will be mined for its construction-grade aggregates, and then replanted with grapes, so "you'll never know we mined it," as Will says.

He adds with a smile, "This could be the new 'Sideways.'"

Freelance journalist Kathy Johnston may be contacted through the editor at kflagg@santamariasun.com.

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