SALT LAKE CITY — A historic gravel quarry in Parley’s Canyon east of Salt Lake City can’t double in size, the Utah Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

The court upheld the ruling of a lower court, which reversed a county decision to let Harper Contracting Inc. expand its limestone and gravel operation to 62.2 acres on the north side of the canyon that holds Interstate 80.

The conservation group Save Our Canyons claimed a victory, but the expansion was an integral part of a reclamation plan that would have lessened the steep pitches of the gravel pit, installed terraces, added soil supplement and vegetation and “make it look a lot more natural,” deputy county attorney Thomas Christensen said Tuesday.

“We’re certainly not anxious to approve gravel pits in the canyons,” he said.

Save Our Canyons said the county bent the rules of an ordinance that allowed only mineral extraction in the canyon. Gravel is not a mineral, and the ordinance doesn’t authorize gravel extraction. The group argued another ordinance requires the county to “preserve the natural character of the foothills.”

The Parley’s Canyon quarry has operated intermittently since 1886, providing gravel, whole limestone for buildings and limestone dust for cement.

“We’ll still be in business for 50 more years,” but remediation won’t take place, said Lawnie Mayhew, Harper’s director of safety and risk management.

“We worked very diligently on a plan that included all of the reclamation that would leave that area vegetated, benched and a lot better looking at the end of its life. And that’s what Save Our Canyons protested. At the end of the day what did they gainfi I don’t know,” he said.

Christensen said the county can’t appeal the decision, and that it was unlikely to approve a larger gravel operation by rezoning Harper’s hundreds of acres of steep canyonside.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D2.

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