Neighbors and property owners raised questions Monday night about truck traffic and the loss of agricultural land to make way for a proposed sand-dredging facility north of Lawrence.

“My concern is the farm land,” Ron Seibold said. “There are 10,000 acres of sandy fields in-between here and Topeka.”

Manhattan-based Midwest Concrete Materials has filed an application with Douglas County for a conditional-use permit on a portion of 310 acres it owns near Midland Junction. The project requires stripping top soil on a portion of the acreage and extracting sand for construction materials.

A project architect told about 80 people during a meeting at the Lawrence Municipal Airport that the company chose the site because of environmental concerns about dredging on land adjacent to the Kansas River. The company also chose the site because it was near U.S. Highway 24-59.

“I also understand that it’s in areas like these where some of the richest sand occurs,” said Tim Herndon, an architect for Landplan Engineering, who represents Midwest Concrete Materials on the project.

The tract of land runs from near the Midland Junction south to North 1900 Road. The sand facility would have an estimated life of 30 to 50 years, and after reclamation, the land could become a fishing lake with green space surrounding it, Herndon said. The city’s future growth would also determine what else occurs at the site, such as whether it becomes a residential area, he said.

“This project has been referred to as a proposed strip mine, and it’s not that at all,” Herndon said.

But neighbors still spoke out about plenty of other concerns, including having trucks access the site from the north near Midland Junction.

“The ingress and egress from U.S. 24-59 up at the Midland Junction area is fraught with really huge concerns,” said Kim Heck, who has lived near the proposed site for 20 years.

Neighbors were also skeptical that trucks would try to avoid train crossings by driving on rural roads near their properties anyway.

Herndon said company officials were confident in results of a traffic study. During the meeting he said they estimated on busy days 40 to 80 trucks would access the site — about 12 trucks during peak travel hour in the morning.

“We will continue to evaluate the project in the context of what the neighbors said tonight,” he said.

The Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission will consider the proposal at a public meeting in late October, and the Douglas County Commission would take it up after that.