EDDINGTON, Maine — Planners made it clear that new mineral extraction regulations approved by residents in April were designed to be very restrictive, but now that the rules are in place, some who live in town say they are too limiting.
“The big issue is the setbacks,” Pam Chapman said at a recent meeting at her house of an informal group called Eddington Concerned Citizens for Fair Ordinances.
The group is asking for the setbacks to be reduced, but it has not filed the correct paperwork to start the review process, Eddington planner Gretchen Heldmann and board chairwoman Susan Dunham-Shane both said Monday.
Residents turned out in force and voted 139 to 56 in support of the rules that created the 1,500-foot setbacks for mineral extraction operations. The setback restrictions from roads and neighboring properties are 15 times the state’s regulation and five times greater than setbacks established in almost all municipalities in Maine.
Residents upset with a proposed ledge quarry project on Fox Lane by Hampden-based earthwork contractor Hughes Bros. started a citizens petition in January 2014 to support a retroactive 180-day moratorium on quarries. The moratorium was extended by another six months to give town planners time to craft the new regulations.
“Everyone thought they were voting to stop the quarry. They didn’t know what they were voting for,” Chapman said.
The mineral extraction rules apply to rock, gravel, sand, topsoil, peat and anything else taken from the ground, said Frank Arisimeek, who owns 237 acres on Fox Lane, a portion of which he wants to sell to Hughes Bros. for a quarry.
“There is no stockpiling. You can’t stockpile your soils,” Arisimeek said as one example of how the new rules go too far. “That means no landscapers. Landscapers pile up soils. It’s not good for small business.”
Rules for noise, dust, stormwater, blasting, groundwater, wildlife habitat and reclamation for mineral extraction operations are all part of the addendum to the zoning ordinance. Chapman said the setbacks cut deeply into her 20 acres of land off the River Road.
Another resident, Hilma Adams said, “the planning board has taken control of my land.”
The concerned citizens group started attending selectmen and planning board meetings regularly in April and have issued letters asking that the setbacks be reduced.
“We reviewed them,” Dunham-Shane said of the group’s letters. “They did not contain any specifics.”
“There is a process to get an amendment passed,” Heldmann said. “General letters are not specific information to modify.”
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 in April 2014 when the first moratorium was put into place.
Hughes Bros. sued Eddington on April 1, 2014, alleging that the town held an illegal executive session attended by selectmen and members of the planning board, improperly withheld records in violation of the state’s Freedom of Access Act and applied the moratorium illegally to the company’s pending application to operate the quarry.
Now, Hughes Bros. is appealing a January decision by Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy that the town legally enacted the retroactive moratorium on quarries.
James and Nichole McLeod, who live on Fox Lane and are part of the group that opposes the proposed rock quarry, also collected 116 signatures on a petition to recall Joan Brooks, longtime chairwoman of the Select Board.
The McLeods claim Brooks violated local ethics rules concerning the proposed quarry. Brooks responded by saying all of the couple’s complaints about her can be easily explained.
Residents can cast ballots in the recall vote 8 a.m-8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29.
Members of Eddington Concerned Citizens for Fair Ordinances are supporting Brooks, who they say is under attack by those who oppose the quarry, by purchasing signs supporting her that they have placed around town.
“We are not going to stop until we take the town back,” Adams said.