New location, same concerns.

Neighbors of the state-line site where a Rathdrum asphalt plant could relocate are raising objections similar to those heard in Rathdrum.

Worries, that is, about health risks, noise and traffic.

"It seems like the community isn't being recognized," said Hayley Lake, whose Post Falls property sits within half a mile of the proposed site.

The Kootenai County commissioners will hold a hearing on Thursday over Coeur d'Alene Paving's proposal to rezone 116 acres a half mile west of Beck Road, near Stateline Speedway, from agriculture to mining.

The company will likely use the property as the new location for its asphalt batch plant, currently operating off Highway 53.

Neighbors' concerns, Lake said, stem from the same reason the company wants to relocate the plant there - that there are already similar operations in the area.

Poe Asphalt Paving, Inc. operates a batch plant on the opposite side of Beck Road, Lake pointed out. And within about a mile there are also operations run by Idaho Asphalt Supply, Inc. and Spokane Rock Products, Inc.

These companies have come in since her family purchased property in the area in the 1970s, Lake said, and most residents have accepted it.

But she worries the new plant will increase neighbors' exposure to fumes and other inconveniences.

"More diesel, more traffic, the noise, the smell," explained Lake, whose own property is zoned light industrial for the family horse business. "I don't know what benefit it does for the community out there."

She and other neighbors have passed out flyers about the issue, and organized neighborhood meetings that roughly 30 attended.

Joyce and Frank Flanigan, whose Newman Lake, Wash., property would sit within 300 feet of the new batch plant, said they don't mind the fumes and noise from Poe Asphalt's plant.

"I don't find them necessarily interrupting our life," Frank said.

But the couple worries that the area, which was predominantly open when they moved there more than 30 years ago, is now being dominated by mining related activities.

Moving in another plant doesn't help, Frank said.

"What you're doing is expanding a mining area," Frank said.

Todd Kaufman, co-owner of Coeur d'Alene Paving, has already spoken with a group of the concerned neighbors.

He assured them, he said, that most houses in their area would sit thousands of feet from the plant, further than many near the Rathdrum site.

The area is primarily zoned mining and light industrial, Kaufman added.

"That area is not a residential area," he said. "This has a lot less residents than in Rathdrum."

The state-line location is appealing because of its central location, he said.

Kaufman also hopes night work would be permissible there, which the county has forbidden at the plant's current location.

"All three asphalt plants (we compete against) can do night jobs," he said. "That's what we're looking for, an even playing field."

The commissioners' hearing over the proposed rezone is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Thursday in Room 1 of the county Administration Building.

Steve Robinson, president of Spokane Rock Products, Inc., said it wasn't easy to rezone property a mile east of Beck Road from agriculture to mining.

The rezone approval six years ago came with myriad conditions, he said, like reclaiming affected property, installing vegetative buffers, conducting noise readings and restricting operating hours.

The landscaping alone cost about $140,000, he said.

"We only got it because they wanted us to return the property back to functional use," Robinson said.

Spokane Rock crushes rock on the rezoned land, Robinson said, but it also has approval to install an asphalt batch plant.

"If they (Coeur d'Alene Paving) are going to be in there, they need to have the same conditions placed on their properties," Robinson said.