ELLSWORTH, Maine — Dead-end phone numbers, mystery addresses and a nearly $2,500 cleanup bill.
Those are the pieces of the puzzle as Ellsworth police seek payment for a bait truck spill that shut down a stretch of Bucksport Road this week before firefighters, police officers and highway crews were able to degrease the slippery, stinking road.
Lt. Harold Page said a bait truck believed to have been the offender was pulled over in Gouldsboro on Tuesday after Ellsworth police put out an alert about the spill. The truck was registered to Capt. R. Herring, a Rockland company, Page said.
Gouldsboro police passed along the driver’s and vehicle’s information to Ellsworth, and Page put together a bill for the company, seeking restitution for the spill. The problem, Page said, is he can’t find any contact information for the company.
“The address doesn’t show up in Rockland Police Department’s database, and the City of Rockland shows it as a warehouse,” Page said Friday. “They gave me a phone number, but that’s been disconnected.”
“Not being able to find out who the owner is, I’ve sent a bill to the company,” Page said.
The lieutenant also has sent the Rockland police a summons for the truck’s driver on a charge of driving with an unsecured load. Page declined to name the driver until the summons is served.
Driving with an unsecured load is a civil infraction, and carries a fine of $150 to $500.
Follow Mario Moretto on Twitter at @riocarmine.
Something smells fishy!
Why shouldn’t it?
hahahah smart guy if he gets away
Yeah, smart, let the taxpayers pay for your bill.
there is no way having a couple volunteer firefighters come with the truck and hook up to the hydrant cost $2,000 lest be realistic.. it gave them some training.. now they know for next time how to properly degrease the road :D
Ellsworth’s fire department is not run by volunteers.
Going after a R(ed) Herring, huh?
Just doin’ business.
Just Impound the truck next time it drives through Ellsworth. It follows a schedule of deliveries. You will be surprised how fast he pays the clean up when he cant pay his bills . This is his best part of the bait season. He misses his deliveries he is finished.
Another upstanding truck driver,, all’s he’s got to say is I fell asleep at the wheel and there won’t be any charges pressed :-/
He is probably working.. Anyone think he might have a job. I once saw a bait box come through the back door of a truck, when it took off from a dead stop on a hill. It smell for weeks.
oh boy ! I bet that smell good
Good, thats payback for all those Down Easters still hauling when the rest of us on the Midcoast are tieing up!
Is there any evidence the guy actually did it?
How can it cost that much? The firefighters would have been sitting around anyway. It cost $100 in fuel, tops.
Something fishy allright. “No charges will be filed in string of 26 grass fires along I-95” That was the headline July 17, now there going to throw the book at these guys, why?
Shouldn’t be to hard to sniff ’em out.
If they sniff him out, s’pose he’ll get a fair herring?
Are local fire depts no longer funded by taxpayers? When did they start charging for service’s? What is this double dipping they like to do and aren’t there laws against that? BTW do they ever call you at home and ask for donations to their funds? Tripple dipping.
What is wrong making a business pay for it’s carelessness? The load was unsecured and that is the fault of the business, not the taxpayers.
$2,500 just to hose down the street?!?! Something’s fishy all right, but it ain’t the fish!