Give ’em a quarter-mile, they’ll take 20 acres. That’s the lesson being learned out in North Bend, where residents opposed to an enormous gravel mine have scored one important victory, though they could yet see it snatched away by a new maneuver from the mining company.

The Redmond-based Cadman company wants to extract some $250 million worth of gravel over 25 years from Grouse Ridge, which overlooks North Bend. But a proposed processing center for the gravel lies just steps away from the gated compound of Grand Master Sheng-Yen Lu, a world-renowned spiritual leader who is considered by his followers to be a living Buddha.

As Seattle Weekly reported in November (“Rocks on the brain,” 11/11/99), attorneys for the Grand Master, and other North Bend residents, took their case to the county, arguing that Cadman was required by King County code to seek a special “Conditional Use Permit” (or CUP) for the project since it would fall “within a quarter-mile of an established residence.” A CUP imposes a host of stricter environmental conditions, as well as requiring more of those annoying public meetings.

But in a letter to the county, Cadman’s attorney argued that the one building on the Grand Master’s property that fell within the quarter-mile boundary was not actually “residential” at all: It contained “two lavatories of institutional character” and seemed to function more as a temple, he wrote. Cadman even submitted the testimony of one of its geologists, who happened to be out at the site one Sunday and claimed to have observed “approximately 80 people” walking out of the structure, “accompanied by several persons who were dressed in robes.”

The county was unconvinced. In a decision issued earlier this month, regulators sided with the Grand Master, finding that the structure was a part of his home from the legal standpoint, regardless of how he might be choosing to use it.

At the same time, however, the county held out to Cadman a ready solution: “Please note,” regulators wrote in their letter to the company, “that if the lower site proposal is modified to move mining activities beyond one-quarter mile of any established residences, then a CUP would not be required.”

Less than a week later, Cadman announced that it would indeed consider shrinking the size of its processing center by five acres, down to about 20 acres, in order to beat the quarter-mile threshold. The company noted that with this option “no special land use permits are needed.” Rod Shearer, Cadman’s project manager, said that the submission of this new option was “the best alternative for the community and for the proposal at this time.”

Neighborhood opponents scoff at the community-mindedness. “This has nothing to do with our needs,” says Jacki Taylor, a nearby resident. “This has to do with their desire to do the project as soon as possible. If they were really sensitive to our needs they would access the gravel from the [next I-90] exit.”

Taylor says the next tack for mine opponents will be drawing attention to the potential threat they believe the project poses to aquifers that lie beneath the mining site—an issue that the county is now busily studying.