Pike Industries promises “state-of-the-art” facility, but Idexx balks at the plan.

WESTBROOK – A committee formed to find a compromise between Pike Industries and the neighbors of its Spring Street quarry will solidify a proposed consent agreement next week that would hold Pike to performance standards to minimize the effects of its blasting.

Pike unveiled a $1 million plan in front of the Spring Street Quarry/Industrial Zone Steering Committee Saturday that specified changes the company would make to its quarrying operations in order to lessen its impact in the neighborhood.

The Spring Street quarry has been under scrutiny for the past two years, while the city has considered rezoning land in and around the Five Star Industrial Park, including the quarry, from industrial to light manufacturing. The new zone, Pike says, would put the quarry out of business. Neighboring business and residents, however, say the zone is necessary for protecting their work, homes and way of life.

An official from Idexx Laboratories, one of the city’s largest taxpayers and a leading proponent of the rezoning, said Pike’s plan didn’t offer much of a compromise and wouldn’t be restrictive enough for the company to move forward with the construction of a $50 million corporate headquarters that would bring 500 more jobs to the city. Westbrook Works, a group of neighboring businesses and residents, said it didn’t feel as though Pike’s proposal addressed its concerns.

The City Council was scheduled to vote on the rezoning in February, but instead decided to table the issue and form the committee to try to work out a compromise that would allow the quarry to stay in business. Since then, the steering committee has heard from residents, businesses and officials from the Department of Environmental Protection. It’s scheduled to make a recommendation to the council by the beginning of May.

In Pike’s presentation Saturday, regional manager Jonathan Olson said the company would limit the sound levels of its blasts and daily operations and reduce blasting vibrations. Olson said Pike would coordinate with neighbors to schedule the blasts, which would occur up to 20 times per year.

He said the effect of a blast would be comparable to a distant rumble of thunder.

The company, Olson said, would create berms and relocate its entranceway in order to block the sounds and sight of the quarry. It would also install a truck wheel rinse station to reduce the amount of dust coming out of the quarry and use sonar alarms on its equipment to eliminate the beeping sound of loaders backing up.

“What we’re talking about is the state-of-the-art quarry of Maine and probably the state-of-the-art quarry in all of New England,” Olson said. He said the project would require a $1 million investment.

The committee agreed to include the standards outlined by Pike in a consent agreement between the company and the city. Previously, the committee had discussed including in the agreement a limitation on the amount of rock that could be extracted from the quarry within a year.

Olson, however, said the proposed limit of 250,000 tons would be “nowhere near enough to meet the demands and needs of our customers.”

Committee members agreed not to include a limitation on the amount of rock extracted, though members Bruce Chuluda, the former mayor and a Spring Street resident, and Victor Chau, the city councilor for Ward 2, where the quarry is located, were opposed.

“I don’t really care how much tonnage they have, as long as they meet the performance standards,” said Linda Lampron, a member of the committee.

Chau, however, said if there would be no limitation on the amount of rock extracted, he thought the number of blasts should be reduced.

“I think 20 blasts is still too high,” he said.

Pike’s pitch, Chau said, has been that it just wants to operate at the same level it had been before its operations became an issue. Earlier in the meeting, John Koris, environmental manager for Pike, said, in recent years, the company was blasting about 15 times per year.

“I don’t see anywhere where they’re going back to where they started from,” said Chau.

However, other committee members said that the impact of the vibrations of each blast was much more critical than the number of blasts.

“It’s the vibrations that everyone feels,” said committee member Duane Gushee.

Mayor Colleen Hilton, who’s also on the committee, said further limiting the number of blasts could still put Pike out of business.

“There’s a threshold where it’s just not feasible to operate the business,” she said.

According to Olson, 20 blasts a year is the baseline.

“It’s not a number we just plucked out of the air,” he said.

The committee didn’t come to a final conclusion about whether to limit the number of blasts per year to fewer than 20. However, Dick Daigle, facilities director for Idexx, said if the City Council approves an agreement that allows for 20 blasts per year, the company would have to look elsewhere to build its headquarters.

“It doesn’t meet our needs,” Daigle said.

George Rodrigues, spokesman for Westbrook Works, said his “initial impression of Pike’s proposal is that it isn’t responsive to concerns expressed by businesses and residents” and that the group would be “offering a clear and concise response” to Pike’s presentation before the next steering committee meeting.

According to Daigle, Idexx would still like to see the new zone implemented without a consent agreement. The light manufacturing zone prohibits extractive industry all together. If the zone was implemented, Pike would have been able to operate as a grandfathered use, but, due to a court decision last week, Pike no longer has grandfathered rights to quarry on the property.

The Zoning Board ruled last year that Blue Rock, the former owner of the Spring Street quarry, never met certain conditions of its 1968 permit – a decision Pike appealed to Maine Business Court. Chief Justice Thomas Humphrey upheld the Zoning Board’s decision last week, making the permit invalid. However, there’s a second part to Pike’s appeal, in which the company claims it wouldn’t be fair to take away its right to operate a quarry after the city knowingly allowed it to do so for 40 years. The court will rule on that part of the appeal later this year.

Still, if the City Council decides to rezone the land, Pike would no longer have the right to operate the quarry. However, if it also approves a consent agreement, that would supersede the stipulations of the zone.

The committee said it would direct the city’s attorney to draw up the language of the consent agreement this week and decide how it would be enforced. The committee will review the agreement at a meeting April 21, then hold a public hearing on April 28, when it also plans make a final recommendation to the City Council.

Daigle said if the council approves a consent agreement that’s largely based on making sure Pike’s quarry is profitable, “that sends a clear message to other businesses.”