CHIMACUM — Opponents of Fred Hill Materials’ proposed “pit-to-pier” project linking the company’s Shine gravel pit to a barge-loading pier on Hood Canal dominated a public hearing Tuesday night at Chimacum High School.

The topic was a mineral overlay zone for the gravel mining operation which the opponents maintained is the first step toward the conveyor and pier project.

Between 250 and 300 people attended the county commissioners’ hearing in the school gym that was supposed to concern only the mineral overlay zone.

“The mineral overlay zone is really about the pit-to-pier project,” said John Fabian, president of the Hood Canal Coalition, which opposes the project.

“It’s not the case,” said Fred Hill’s attorney, James C. Tracy of Poulsbo.

Commissioner Glen Huntingford, R-Chimacum, said he wasn’t sure when the commissioners would decide the fate of the zone.

They have three options that were analyzed in the environmental impact statement:

* The proposed action alternative proposed by Fred Hill is for a 6,240-acre overlay which includes no limit on mining size.

That means it would be determined by the state Department of Natural Resources.

* The commissioners’ “approve action” alternative that would allow a 690-acre overlay, include 15 conditions and have a 40-acre limit on mining segments.

* The “no action” alternative which doesn’t designate an overlay relying on the Unified Development Code’s requirements for mining and processing outside of the overlay.

Many of the opponents favored the no action alternative.

Fabian accused Fred Hill officials of using scare tactics in trying to persuade the public that the pit-to-pier project is needed.

Fabian also said Fred Hill’s promises to share sales tax from the sale of gravel in other areas would not yield “a tax bonanza” to Jefferson County if the pit-to-pier project is built.

“Industrial development (on Hood Canal) would be disastrous,” Fabian said, pointing out what he called the fragile environmental conditions of that inland body of water.

Attorney Tracy said the mineral overlay zone proposal “doesn’t violate the Growth Management Act or the county’s Comprehensive Plan or the Unified Development Code.”

‘In some cases, hysterical’

Tracy denied that the pit-to-pier project and mineral overlay zone are linked.

Tracy warned the commissioners that the testimony of opponents of the plan would be “emotionally charged and, in some cases, hysterical.”

He accused opponents of using “tactics designed to enflame” the general public against the project.