The Standish Town Council voted unanimously to remove the 26,000-pound, emergency weight limits imposed on Middle Jam Road last month. The town was concerned that the proposed expansion of a gravel pit in Gorham would increase heavy truck traffic on the country road and speed deterioration of the roadbed.

Representatives of R.J. Grondin and Sons, owners of the gravel pit, which has access and egress onto Middle Jam Road, met with Gordon Billington, Standish town manager, last week to propose a solution for the council to consider.

“We offered a $25,000 impact fee to Standish for road repairs on Middle Jam,” said Larry Grondin, spokesperson for the company. “Industry and government can and should work together. We’re pleased to have worked this out with the town.”

Roger Mosley, Standish public works director, said, “I am happy with the outcome. We went through an impact fee process, as we have on other Standish roads when we look at added, heavy truck traffic. Grondin had an engineering firm look at the impact. We compared the impact with the overall improvement cost estimates. We already have that road scheduled for work in 2007 at a cost of $136,000. The $25,000 figure is a percentage of the rebuild cost based on the impact from Grondin traffic.”

Billington said, “Larry and Ken Grondin are two extremely accommodating businessmen. Throughout the whole process they treated the Town of Standish very fairly.”

Copy the Story Link