Thursday November 12, 2026
Fresnoland —
Just north of Fresno, a multi-national company wants to build a gravel mine on a riverbank that holds many ambitions.
CEMEX, the $15 billion mining behemoth headquartered in Mexico, is asking the Fresno County Board of Supervisors on Thursday for permission to blast the riverine area into a 300-ft-deep pit whose girth would almost span the Golden Gate Bridge.
State and federal agencies have a more bucolic vision in mind. The State of California wants to turn the neighboring area into the biggest park system in Fresno. And the Bureau of Reclamation plans on restoring the river right next to the mine so that salmon can spawn there again. All told, about $1 billion in taxpayer funds have been pledged to achieve the park-and-salmon idea.
This vision for the San Joaquin River corridor is under existential threat by the CEMEX proposal, according to UC Berkeley professor and fluvial geomorphologist Mathias Kondolf.