Santa Rosa quarry facing $8.6 million fine is being sold to international company

A Santa Rosa sand and gravel operation that is facing a record $8.6 million fine over stormwater runoff at its 120-acre Mark West Quarry, is being sold to a global building materials company.

The pending acquisition of BoDean Company Inc., was announced Friday by CRH Americas Materials, the North American division of Ireland-based CRH, which has operations in 29 countries around the world, roughly split between Europe and North America. CRH is also acquiring a partner company, Northgate Ready Mix, as part of the deal.

Neither CRH nor BoDean co-owner Dean Soiland would say how the sale came about or which party initiated it.

Soiland suggested the decision to sell was unrelated to the financial hit of a fine from the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, though he would not say so outright.

"We are delighted to welcome all BoDean and Northgate employees to the CRH family," Scott Parson, president of CRH’s Americas Materials Solutions, said in a news release. “The construction market in California is one of the largest in the United States and presents CRH with attractive opportunities for development and growth.

“As North America’s leading integrated supplier of aggregates, asphalt and ready mixed concrete we look forward to helping build, connect and improve Northern California and serving customers,” the statement said.

Soiland, who owns BoDean with his wife, Belinda, or “Bo,” has run the company for 35 years — since the couple acquired the long-running Mark West Quarry in 1989.

He said a three-day hearing scheduled Oct. 2-4 at the regional water quality board’s Santa Rosa offices would go forward, despite the pending sale. The board’s six members will decide what, if any, violations occurred and what kind of fine BoDean has to pay.

The company is alleged to have failed over several winters in its efforts to manage fine sediments from its rock and aggregate quarry operations so they don’t run off the site in stormwater and foul local streams and tributaries.

The resulting discharges threaten federally protected species of salmon and steelhead that inhabit the Russian River watershed. The watershed includes Mark West Creek, one of five priority streams identified by the state, and Porter Creek, which flows into it.

The case has proved frustrating and hurtful to Soiland, who says the company’s investment in millions of dollars worth of catchment, filtering and water treatment equipment proves its intention to operate sustainably. He also cites the company’s conversion to solar power in 2011 to run the quarry as further evidence of its environmental interests.

“I know of no other mining operation in the state that has had stewardship that exemplified environmental stewardship like we have,” he said Monday.

The purchase of BoDean, once finalized, will mark CRH’s first foray into California. The deal includes BoDean’s sprawling rock quarry off Porter Creek Road, its Blue Rock Quarry in Forestville, its asphalt plant on Maxwell Drive in Santa Rosa and the Windsor Concrete Recycling site.

Northgate’s concrete batch plants in Windsor and Sonoma also are included in the sale.

Soiland’s brother, Troy Soiland, is the president of Northgate Ready Mix, which uses BoDean aggregate to make concrete.

All employees for the companies are to be retained “and continue on, business as usual,” Soiland said.

A spokesman for CRH said the company had no more comment beyond its news release.

Inquiries to the regional water board regarding ramifications of a sale for BoDean’s regulatory action were not immediately returned.

Soiland said he and his wife always tried to be good “stewards of God’s resources.”

“We care a lot,” he said. “We care a lot about the company. We care a lot about the environment. We really cared about the community and wanted to give back to the community.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan (she/her) at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @MaryCallahanB.