The Winona County Board of Commissioners Tuesday voted unanimously to schedule a public hearing on the completed Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW) for the Nisbit sand mine proposal in Saratoga Township.              
  
The public hearing will take place before the County Planning Commission on March 21st.                 

Nisbit representatives requested that it be a public meeting not a 5th public hearing since October of 2011 concerning the project. They also requested that the County Board consider both the EAW and Conditional Use Permit at it's meeting in March.

Board member Jim Pomeroy said it was a matter of being consistent, since the board had scheduled a planning commission public hearing for the Dablestein and Yoder sand mine proposals last week.

Those hearings were cancelled after Minnesota Sands announced it would conduct a voluntary environmental impact statement on those two proposals.     

Although she voted in favor the public hearing, board member Marcia Ward, wondered if there was a way the board could only hear new information at the public hearing.

Following the hearing, the Planning Commission will make a recommendation to the county board on how to proceed. It's expected the board will take up the matter at it's first meeting in April.