AUGUSTA — City officials on Thursday signaled their intention to postpone deciding on a change in the rules determining how many times a quarry operator can blast in a year — a change that was meant to resolve a long-running dispute between a quarry owner and neighbors who think his operation has damaged their homes.
The proposed changes to the city’s blasting ordinance would have reduced the number of blasts allowed per year in mineral extraction, or quarrying, operations to six.
Councilors were going to consider voting on the rules next week, but at a meeting Thursday night, they said they expect to table the proposed changes then so the city staff can collect expert opinion about the effects of quarries operated in the city, including the one operated by McGee Construction on West River Road.
They also agreed to have the city staff survey the neighbors of that operation, several of whom attended Thursday’s meeting and made public comments on their concerns about it. Several neighbors said they thought blasting had affected their water supplies, led to water damage in their basements and made it hard to sell their homes.
“My water quality has deteriorated,” said Peter Nicolosi, who owns a home on Kenneth Street. “I had to get a filtration system, and I then I had to get a stronger one. I have cracks in my floors, cracks in the front of my basement. … I don’t see anything that could have caused these problems other than the blasting. It has gotten demonstrably worse over time.”
The proposed change to the blasting ordinance was a compromise meant to settle a long-running dispute between Steve McGee, the owner of McGee construction, and neighbors of his quarry.
Last month city councilors proposed reducing the standard for allowable blasts in rock-production quarries to just 15 percent of the current standards, which the two quarry owners in the city — McGee and Peter Quirion, of Quirion Construction — said would require blasts to be too small for their operations to be feasible.
Last week city councilors proposed, instead, to make no changes to the performance standards, which are based on ground vibration and particle velocity measurements, and instead cut the number of blasts allowed in each quarry to about half the blasts allowed under their current licenses.
McGee, though, did not support the compromise and said the reduction would make it impossible for that part of his business to be viable. This week, McGee asked councilors to delay making any decisions on the ordinance, given the fact that his own blasting license expires in the spring. He said he doesn’t intend to make more than six blasts in 2017 before he has to apply for a new license.
Councilors decided to delay any decisions on the ordinance changes after hearing from city attorney Stephen Langsdorf, who said reducing the number of blasts in a year would not do much to address the homeowners’ concerns. Langsdorf also told councilors that the most important task would be having new rules in place before McGee has to renew his five-year license in the spring.
“I would caution or recommend that the big picture, best idea is to look hard at what can be done during the winter,” Langsdorf said.
Charles Eichacker — 621-5642
Twitter: @ceichacker
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.