SAGLE — Determined foes of a proposed asphalt batch plant are making another run at nullifying a Bonner County ordinance amendment which allows such facilities to be located in gravel pits located in industrial zones, 1st District Court records show.

The code amendment challenge was among of a series of legal arguments raised by Citizens Against Linscott/Interstate Concrete & Asphalt in a petition for judicial review which sought to undo permit approval in a 2019 legal action, but district Judge Jeff Brudie ruled against opponents of the plant. Brudie ruled in part that the code change challenge should have been the subject of separate and distinct litigation.

Asphalt plant opponents adopted the court’s advice on June 18, according to 1st District Court records.

“The Citizens, as a group and its individual members, will all be injured by the existence of and reliance on the ordinance that is being challenged in this lawsuit,” the group’s counsel, Boise attorney Gary Allen, said in a civil complaint.

Citizens argue the code change will diminish their property values, in addition to causing injury to their health and their right to quietly use and enjoy their property, court records indicate.

Bonner County commissioners implemented the code change in 2018 and went on to uphold a conditional use permit that would allow Interstate to relocate an existing batch plant on the north side of Sandpoint to Frank Linscott’s surface mine on the west side of U.S. Highway 95 north of Gun Club Road. The batch plant had been operating on a temporary basis over the years and permit approval was meant to give the operation some permanence.

However, the asphalt plant has drawn the ire of neighboring landowners who contend emissions from the plant are a public health threat that jeopardizes water and air quality in their neighborhood.

“The proposed batch plant resulting from the approval substantially prejudices the Citizens substantial rights by negatively impacting the use and enjoyment, and the value, of the real property owned by members of Citizens, who all live close enough to the proposed plant to be negatively impacted by it, and many of whom live immediately adjacent to or within a mile of the proposed plant,” Allen said in the complaint.

The new filing comes after residents appeal Brudie’s rulings in the prior litigation to the Idaho Supreme Court.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.