Abandoned mining pit in Orange could become nature preserve

Once a mining pit, a long-unused quarry in Orange is on track to become a nature preserve, the city of Orange announced Thursday.

Owners of the 14-acre Chandler sand and gravel basin on Santiago Canyon Road, dubbed by East Orange residents the “Chandler Pit,” have agreed to donate the basin to the city in exchange for rights to expand business on their existing property – at street level only, officials emphasized – further along the road.

Details of the proposed development agreement are scheduled to go before the city Planning Commission on Aug. 5, officials said.

Prior to the 1960s, miners for sand and gravel built a 140-foot-deep pit at the site. But since the 1960s, the pit has been abandoned.

Chandler’s Sand and Gravel bought the property near North Cannon Street in the 2010s with plans to prepare the land for future development. Those plans never came to fruition due to bureaucratic hurdles and environmental concerns.

A long-unused quarry in Orange, CA could become a nature preserve after the owners agreed to donate 14 acres to the city. The property sits on the corner of Cannon Street and Santiago Canyon Road. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)

After acquiring the land, the company took several years to secure necessary approvals from several agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the city of Villa Park, to fill and grade the pit with 770,000 cubic yards of dirt, concrete and asphalt. But the project got hung up with other agencies.

In 2019, Chandler’s president, John Robertson, described the proposed operation as fairly typical. “This is a regular grading permit – grading permits are issued every day,” he said.

The state has been trying to get old quarries filled in, Robertson said at the time. The largely hidden pits pose fire hazards and can draw homeless encampments and illicit activities, he said.

But a group of East Orange residents contended that filling the quarry would disturb wildlife habitat home to a small bird, the least Bell’s vireo, which is endangered. With the land unused for so long, they said the area, near to Santiago Oaks Regional Park, had been reclaimed by nature.

They also expressed concern that filing the quarry would pave the way for future homes — a sensitive topic for the area’s residents who have for years fought against allowing housing on a larger former quarry, known as the Sully Miller site, just up Santiago Canyon Road.

At the time, Robertson said filling the quarry would indeed make the site suitable for homes and other developments, and his company intended to sell the land after filling and grading it.

As of yet, the land remains zoned for sand and gravel operations.

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