WINDSOR — There will be no asphalt made at the newest site of R.C. & Sons Paving. The company has halted all its operations.

The 36-year-old Lewiston-based firm closed Friday, vice president Mike Cloutier said Monday.

Cloutier said that the company’s 40 employees were informed of the closure Friday. He declined to comment further on the family-owned business.

There was no answer Monday at the office telephone.

The paving plant recently installed in a pit owned by Pete Kelly off Route 105 in Windsor never had produced asphalt, although there had been some rock-crushing in preparation for it.

One contract held by R.C. & Sons Paving was for paving parking lots and roads at the new regional hospital under construction by MaineGeneral Medical Center in north Augusta.

Cloutier said the company had done paving at the site last year, and he was unsure about what would happen in the future.

Nicole McSweeney, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said the construction managers indicated the work will be completed as contracted.

The plant, which had operated since the summer of 2009 in Augusta before city zoning changes forced the move, had raised numerous concerns from its new neighbors.

Bruce Verfaillie, whose land abuts the Windsor pit, was one of those objecting to the location. On Monday, Verfaillie said he had neither seen nor smelled any asphalt production.

“I heard the rock crusher at the beginning of May,” Verfaillie said. “It sounds like a train in the near distance.”

Verfaillie said he had been down to see the pit operation a few times, and most recently saw no activity at the plant. “The conveyor belt was stopped at the top,” he said.

Verfaillie had talked several times with Cloutier.

“My biggest grievance wasn’t with the him; it was the town’s handling of the matter,” Verfaillie said.

He had asked selectmen to consider a moratorium to further discuss health and odor concerns as well as the effect on the neighborhood’s quality of life.

Before closing operations in Augusta in December 2011, Cloutier said the plant provided 15 to 20 jobs, including three workers at the plant itself, a nine-person paving crew and two laboratory workers; and it generated work for several owner-operator truck drivers.

Staying at the Augusta location was not an option. Last year, Augusta city councilors approved a zoning change that banned asphalt plants in pits in that area after nearly three years of complaints from residents of the nearby Grandview neighborhood. Some neighbors complained about the asphalt odor, saying it often made it impossible for them to enjoy their backyards or leave windows open.

Company officials have said moving the plant from Augusta to Windsor cost the company about $100,000.

About 30 people attended a Windsor selectmen’s meeting at the end of April to see whether the town had any control over the matter. Selectmen said that as long as the plant met state criteria, the town had no rules against it.

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

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