Operators of an asphalt plant already built at Santa Fe's regional landfill no longer have permission from elected officials to open and could face fines from the county for building without a permit.

County commissioners and city councilors on the joint board that oversees the landfill voted Tuesday to stop work on the asphalt plant project pending the outcome of a Santa Fe County development permit process.

Machines to produce "hot-mix" asphalt were erected at the landfill this summer by contractors with Fisher Sand and Gravel, also doing business as Southwest Asphalt Paving. The company had permission from the landfill administrator, board of officials, and the state Environment Department to begin operations, but hit a red light when nearby residents caught on.

About 75 people attended a meeting of the regional Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Authority to raise questions about the proposal, including whether appropriate notice was provided and whether state regulations are strong enough to ensure air quality at the location near golf courses and athletic fields.

But even before public complaints, the board unanimously voted to order the halt.

"Everything has stopped. It's not going to happen," City Councilor Rosemary Romero, board chairwoman, said after the meeting. "We say, 'Let's go through the process and see where we are.' The county will be able to decide one way or the other as to the issue of permits."

County Commissioner Kathy Holian stressed that any company has the right to come to the county and ask for a permit; however, the county "does not have to grant that permit."

Jack Kolkmeyer, county land-use administrator, did not attend the meeting, but said later that he's sending a county code enforcement officer to the site today, and it's likely the asphalt plant operators will be issued a notice of violation for building the facility on landfill property without permission under the county development code.

Meanwhile, Kolkmeyer and the County Attorney's Office are busy reviewing legal agreements that created the regional landfill and subsequent contracts with outside firms to blast away rock to make room for refuse. So far, he said, no one has determined that the county's land-use jurisdiction does not apply.

"Actually who has jurisdiction is unclear ... but we are not going to allow some kind of a development to continue forward without a permit if it is required," he said.

Further, he said, the county issues permits for temporary batch asphalt plants only when they are associated with a particular highway project, and in that case for only 180 days at a time.

The county permit process requires applicants to attend about a half-dozen public hearings as well as provide formal architectural drawings for a development master plan.

Andrew Frye, consultant with KiStone Environmental for the project, said project operators didn't have a comment about Tuesday's decision and were awaiting legal advice from their attorneys.

Threats of lawsuits from the other side were among angry words uttered at the board meeting. John House, an attorney who also lives near the landfill, said officials should consider the costs of potential litigation by "people in the community damaged by the operation of the asphalt plant. Those could be considerable, and I think the county should consider that," he said.

Others talked about Fisher's reputation in other states, including in Arizona's Maricopa County, where officials announced that plants operated by the company have racked up 1,368 violations of air-pollution laws.

"Who's representing me and my children who play on these fields?" shouted stay-at-home mother Maureen McKenna, who also lives nearby and distributed literature about other communities fighting asphalt plants and about Fisher's reputation.

She and other neighbors missed an announcement about the plant's air-quality permit because notice was posted only at the landfill entrance and in an Albuquerque newspaper, she said. "It felt like they tried to sneak it by us," McKenna said.

The state Environment Department issued a permit for the asphalt plant more than a year ago and would be the agency responsible for monitoring compliance with emission controls. The permit explains that the plant would use a technology called a "bag house" to contain some pollutants and applies the same standards as the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Jim Norton, Air Quality Bureau chief, said in an e-mail statement that the Environment Department will be proposing a bad actor bill in the next legislative session to allow consideration of a company's compliance history when issuing air-quality permits.

Norton did not indicate whether Fisher would be considered such a "bad actor."

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.