WESTBROOK – Artel Inc. has filed a motion in Maine Business and Consumer Court asking a judge to reject the consent agreement that the city of Westbrook negotiated with Pike Industries regarding operations at Pike’s Spring Street quarry.

Artel claims the consent agreement “is not fair, adequate, reasonable or lawful,” so the court should not approve it.

Smiling Hill Farm joined in Artel’s arguments against the consent order.

Artel, which makes instruments for the precise measuring of liquids, and Smiling Hill Farm, which wants to build a 20-acre glass greenhouse for tomatoes, are neighbors of the quarry and say blasting there would negatively impact their businesses. They oppose the consent agreement, which contains such provisions as allowing Pike to perform production blasts as many as eight times per year.

The two companies are interveners in a lawsuit Pike filed against the city of Westbrook. The consent agreement, approved by the City Council on Sept. 8, would settle the lawsuit out of court, if Superior Court Thomas E. Humphrey approves it.

Idexx Laboratories, a biotechnology firm located near the quarry in the Five Star Industrial Park, also is an intervener in the case, and supports the consent agreement.

The judge set Monday, Sept. 20, as the date for parties in the case to file arguments about the consent agreement. Friday, Sept. 24, is the deadline for parties to respond to the Sept. 20 filings. Bill Dale, the city’s attorney, said the city plans to file a response by the end of the week.

The city has already filed a motion with the court asking the judge to approve the consent agreement.

The judge is expected next to decide whether to hold a hearing on the matter and to subsequently make a decision regarding the consent order.

The case was set to go to trial on Sept. 13, but Humphrey beforehand had urged the parties to reach a settlement.

A trial would determine whether Pike has a legal right to operate the quarry. The city has said that quarrying there is illegal because Blue Rock, the company from which Pike bought the quarry in 2005, didn’t meet conditions of its 1968 quarry permit. But Pike filed suit, arguing that the city was unfair to deny it a right to operate now when it had knowingly allowed quarrying at the site for decades.

Humphrey warned the parties that if the case went to trial, one side or the other would prevail. If Pike won, city officials have said, there would be no restrictions on its blasting and other operations at the quarry.

That is why the city hammered out a consent agreement this summer with Pike and Idexx. That agreement called for allowing Pike to operate the quarry but under restrictions.

However, Artel and Smiling Hill Farm and a number of residents of nearby homes have complained that they were shut out of negotiations.

So when the consent agreement came before the council on Aug. 30, the council voted unanimously to table the agreement and sent it back for further negotiations.

That launched a series of fast-paced negotiation talks, which resulted in a revised consent agreement the council approved by a 4-2 vote on Sept. 8.

Pike agreed to a number of further concessions, including a promise to talk with residents who want to move about buying their houses at 2010 appraised values.

But Artel, Smiling Hill and some residents say that negotiations were too rushed. And some residents say the agreement doesn’t require sufficient Department of Environmental Protection monitoring of the site.