AUGUSTA — Construction company representatives said a proposal to tighten the city’s standards for blasting in quarries to just 15 percent of the current allowable standard would make it impossible to blast and force them to close their mining operations and get out of the stone business.

Officials of Gardiner-based McGee Construction and its blasting contractor, Maine Drilling and Blasting, as well as Augusta-based Quirion Construction, which also has quarrying operations in the city, all said if the current standards in the ordinance decreased as much as proposed it would force them to close down their quarrying operations in Augusta. And they, and their customers, would have to look elsewhere for stone materials used widely in the construction industry in road and infrastructure projects. They noted the current ordinance was the result of intensive, years-long discussions between industry representatives, city officials, and neighbors to quarry operations.

The McGee pit in Augusta as seen in September 2015 from east side of the Kennebec River. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

“The problem with the ordinance, at 15 percent, which is 50 percent of what the state allows, is it would effectively shut the quarries down,” said Steve McGee, owner of McGee Construction and the West River Road pit where regular blasting has occurred and which has fueled an ongoing dispute with neighbors of the nearby Grandview neighborhood. “Fifteen percent wouldn’t allow us enough to be economically feasible at all.”

The proposed ordinance change, sponsored by multiple councilors and going to them for discussion Thursday, comes in response both to ongoing complaints from residents of the Grandview neighborhood and to a city official describing a blast he observed from inside a home as startling and alarming.

The Grandview neighborhood is next to a McGee Construction-owned pit and quarry operation that blasts rock up to 10 times a year off West River Road. Matt Nazar, the city’s development director, has attended roughly 40 blasts at quarry operations, mostly in the McGee pit, over the last 10 years. During a recent blast, Nazar was in the home of Grandview resident Roland Maheux, and he said the blast was “startling,” and felt much more significant than blasts of similar size he observed outside.

Nazar said that blast and the other blasts he’s observed at the West River Road pit this year were well below allowable standards for ground vibration contained in the city’s blasting ordinance.

Nazar said data indicated the blast was only 20 percent to 25 percent of the maximum allowable blast.

So if the city wants to appease neighbors by reducing the blasts’ impact, the city’s allowable standards would have to be tightened dramatically. Officials said they are already lower than the standards of the federal Bureau on Mines.

Disputes between the pit owner and neighbors about the effect of blasting there go back many years, and the city’s current mining and blasting rules were formed after a lengthy process involving multiple interested parties.

Keith Edwards can be contacted at 621-5647 or at:

kedwards@centralmaine.com

Twitter: kedwardskj

Related Stories