EDDINGTON, Maine — Residents turned out in force to vote on and approve new “restrictive” rules for future mineral extraction operations in town, Town Manager Russell Smith said Friday.
“There were 195 votes cast, but there was somewhere around 250 people there,” Smith said of Thursday’s special town meeting to address the issue. “The addendum got 139 ‘yes’ votes and 56 ‘no’ votes.
“Before the vote there was discussion, and residents spoke on both sides,” the town manager said.
Residents upset with a proposed ledge quarry project on Fox Hill started a citizens petition last January to support a 180-day moratorium, that was extended, to give town planners time to craft the new regulations for mineral extraction projects.
The addendum to the existing land use ordinance sets performance standards for mineral extraction activities related to noise, dust, stormwater, blasting, groundwater, wildlife habitat, reclamation and setbacks.
The new setbacks are 15 times the state’s regulations and five times greater than almost all municipalities in Maine.
“The setback for rock excavation is 1,500 feet,” Smith said. “When they were drafting the ordinance, they had 1,000, and it changed to 1,500 after the public hearing the planning board held.”
Project manager Janet Hughes of Hughes Bros. Inc., a Hampden-based earthwork contractor that put the Fox Hill quarry project before the town, said Wednesday that if passed, the addendum would “cut out the potential for gravel pits and quarries to exist and/or expand in the town” and that a lawsuit may follow.
“Their process of developing the ordinance is flawed and unfair,” Hughes said in an email Wednesday. “The process is re-zoning in disguise and has the look and feel of regulatory taking. I still shake my head in disbelief of the process and the invitation by the town to just let the attorneys figure it out, subjecting residents to a heavy burden of liability.
“It is OK to lose, and it is OK to hear ‘no,’ but it is not OK to string business along spending time and extensive [money],” Hughes said.
“Such actions cannot be tolerated by anyone. We will yield to science and technology, however, in absence of such, and in absence of respect, we will accept the town’s invitation to just let the attorneys figure it out,” she said.
Hughes Bros.’ first application, for a 10-acre quarry, was denied by the Eddington Planning Board after a two-hour review in October 2013. The company’s most recent application, which seeks a quarry between 5 and 20 acres, was put on hold last April when the first of two 180-day moratoriums was put into place.
“I would say they are very restrictive,” Smith said of the new mineral extraction rules.
“The planning board put a lot of time in this in the past year drafting the ordinance. It came down to the wire to submit it, and we needed to move forward.”
Any changes to the new rules would again need to go before voters in a town meeting, the town manager said.
Voters on Thursday also approved minor changes to the zoning ordinance.