Richard and Trevor Hunziker of Annie Lake Trucking say it doesn’t make sense that the city is evicting them from the Ear Lake gravel pit.

Annie Lake Trucking has been there for decades – and there is still plenty of readily-accessible gravel, they maintained in a recent interview with the Star at the pit site.

They said there are still more than 300,000 cubic metres of gravel in their pit.

Of that, 180,000 cubic metres could be moved if the city were to give them just two more years, they explained.

The city told them four months ago they had to be out by tomorrow, they said, noting they were also told in 2020 the city wanted them out.

With two more years, they can quarry the 180 cubic metres. Then the city could turn into a park as outlined in its Official Community Plan, they said.

The brothers explained there is no pressure on Skookum Asphalt nor Castlerock to vacate their pits because they own the property, but Annie Lake was never given the opportunity to buy its property.

That Annie Lake Trucking was never provided the opportunity to buy the land in their pit was absolutely unfair, they maintain.

The city threatened to sue Annie Lake last winter, so the company had to go to court and was more or less forced to sign an agreement they would vacate the pit by July.

However, it has no intention of doing so, they said.

“I will be standing at the gate,” said Richard. “I don’t care if I 
 get arrested.”

Richard and Trevor said the push to evict them comes as the city is facing a gravel shortage.

The Hunzikers noted they wanted to appear before city council three or four months ago to appeal the eviction.

They were told they could not appear before council because the matter was before the courts.

In a similar vein, the city does not make media comments on matters before the courts.

Moving their operations to the McLean Lake quarry would cost Annie Lake Trucking approximately $1 million, the Hunzikers maintain.

The said having to relocate their operation would mean moving their 40-foot by 80-foot shop, as well as all their equipment and fleet of dump trucks.

The Hunzikers say the quality of gravel in their Ear Lake pit is far superior to the gravel in the McLean Lake quarry.

Annie Lake is the only quarrying company that produces concrete-grade gravel but does not have a concrete plant, they explained.

The city’s gravel shortage has the Yukon government examining the Stevens quarry, off the Alaska Highway north of the Mayo Cutoff, as a possible source.

However, shortly before the April 2021 election, Tracey Jacobs, the Liberal candidate for Lake Laberge, knocked on doors with the cabinet’s written assurance that Stevens would not be developed during the term of a re-elected Liberal government.

A decade ago, the potential development of that site prompted a protest petition from nearby residents anxious about noise, dust and increased heavy truck traffic the deposit’s development would create.