Residents fight back against gravel pit and asphalt plant

ARLEE, Mont. - Following the initial announcement of the Marvin Rehbein gravel pit project in May, residents of the Jocko Valley have come together to combat the placement of the pit.

The residents were given thirty days from receiving the letter on May first, to get a fifty-one percent majority in order to gain a public hearing.

After being denied, the residents have formed the "Friends of the Jocko" nonprofit to raise money to hire a law firm in order to fight both the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and Riverside Contracting to stop the project.

"I think overall water issues, and for me personally just the proximity of my property to the project, would be the amount of noise and dust that's going to come off of it and even scarier now is we will have almost no way to mitigate that with the DEQ," said resident Jennifer Knoetgen.

The permit is in an approval process and could take up to three months before being put into effect, allowing the project to move forward.

The Montana DEQ and Riverside contracting have not responded to us on the project, but we will post an update after hearing from them.