The long goodbye to Lehigh Cement Plant and Quarry

By Joe Simitian 

Goodbyes are often hard. But there’s one goodbye I’m OK with – the day when we finally say ‘so long’ to the Lehigh Cement Plant and Quarry, a 3,500-acre property in the Cupertino foothills. 

That said, it will take awhile. Just last year my colleagues on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and I approved a legally binding agreement between our County and the owners of Lehigh to close the cement kiln for good. It felt like the end of an era—nearly 100 years in the making.

Yes, it took nearly a century, but we finally reached an outcome that makes sense for our community and, frankly, for the folks at Lehigh. The truth is that after more than 80 years of operations, the environs surrounding the cement plant have changed considerably and it simply no longer works to have a major industrial operation like a quarry and cement plant near our local communities, namely Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, and Palo Alto.

So how did we get to a better place?

For me it goes back to 2013 when I returned to the Board of Supervisors. Seeing that there was limited County oversight of Lehigh, I began to push for a series of measures, hoping those incremental steps would eventually add up to tangible reforms. We quickly got to work facilitating the sharing of information among the dozen regulatory agencies overseeing Lehigh, holding annual “town halls” to enable the community to meet and interact with the regulators and to get answers to their questions, and holding monthly calls with Lehigh to signal that we were going to stay on top of the situation.

When Lehigh submitted a proposal in 2019 to expand its mining operations, including chopping the top of the hillside at the existing quarry, I worked with the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (Midpen), Cupertino city leaders, environmental groups, and labor officials to protect the existing hillside protection easement and the hillside. Our message was clear: Don’t chop the top. Protect the hillsides. Honor existing commitments.

Los Altos City Councilmember Neysa Fligor credited this most unusual of partnerships to an engaged citizenry, noting that “everybody was supportive because we understood what the issue was.”

We found a way to address this threat by sharing enforcement rights of the County’s hillside protection easement with Midpen, a public agency specifically dedicated to preserving and restoring open space.

Next, I asked our Department of Planning and Development and our County Counsel’s Office to conduct an audit of Lehigh’s environmental violations over the past decade. The result: more than 2,100 violations and millions of dollars in fines over the past 10 years.

These results were problematic for Lehigh. The cement plant was covered by a use permit, and one of the conditions of the permit was that the operator must comply with all applicable laws and regulations. Seeing an opportunity to ensure the closure of the cement kiln, I asked our County’s Planning Commission to consider revoking or modifying Lehigh’s use permit.

Lehigh responded by announcing it would cease cement production at the plant and operate instead as a distribution center. To make that a permanent and legally binding commitment, last year I flew to Irving, Texas, to visit the North American headquarters of Lehigh’s parent company, Heidelberg Materials.

I hoped I could persuade Heidelberg to forego an extended Planning Commission process and simply sign an agreement to close the cement kiln permanently. Heidelberg agreed, and less than four months later, the deal was sealed. We got them to agree that even if someone else buys the cement plant, even if there's a change in business plans, even if there's new leadership at the company, the cement kiln remains closed. Once and for all.

Which raises an obvious question: What happens to Lehigh now? The answer is that it will likely take at least a couple of years before a new reclamation plan application is received from the company and approved by the County (following a thorough public process); then decades until the lands are reclaimed. So, we all need to stay tuned, and stay engaged! 

I want to personally invite our community to come learn more about these next steps at my annual Lehigh public meeting on March 27 at Cupertino’s Community Hall. This will be a great opportunity to receive updates and ask questions directly of the panel of oversight agencies, which include, among others, the County’s Environmental Health Department and Department of Planning and Development, as well as the Regional Water Quality Control Board. The meeting is in person and folks can also tune in virtually. Learn more and register at direc.to/kVw2. 

I hope to see you there!