I am asking that the Gorham Planning Board and the Town Council, after weighing all the pros and cons in the matter, please decide against allowing an asphalt plant or rock quarry to become a part of Gorham’s residential community. I have been to several town meetings and am scared to death that the Shaw Brothers’ application for this project is being considered for Mosher Road, and that it could actually come to fruition.

While arguments against the asphalt plant and quarry have been made ad nauseam, it remains critical that both citizens and town planners do not become tired of or hardened against the truths that exist there. Both the plant and quarry will change the quality of this community forever. Once it exists, it can’t be taken back.

I am entertaining the idea of moving out of Gorham, simply out of fear at this point. If the plant and quarry do come, I will move forward with this, despite not really wanting to leave. I live in the village off Route 202, not in direct proximity of the 125-acre proposed project site. But the trucks that drive through here are already so bad that my neighbor’s toilet cracked and broke due to vibrations from traffic and truck engine braking.

I work all day and need to have some serenity when I get home. Even now it is difficult to talk with my family outside in my yard with the existing traffic, and I regularly get woken at night due to heavy trucks passing through. Traffic has already increased due to the roadwork at the other end of Gray Road (at the round about). I cannot imagine what the trucks will be like going through town both day and night (with proposed plans for a 24 hour operation schedule) if a quarry and plant come to town, with the noise, dirt, smell, exhaust and safety risks.

My property does not abut the location of the proposed industry. However, I will definitely be impacted by the dust, noise, fumes and toxins. So will be the children who are trying to grow up in Gorham, especially while going to schools that are so close to the proposed asphalt site. And the quarry blasting, at any time, will be far-reaching and awful. Even a couple miles away, I worry about the foundation of my home.

Most Gorham neighborhoods, even those that are rural and far from the village, will be impacted by the health and nuisance aspects of this project. The carcinogens of rock dust, stack toxin emissions and fumes are both well documented and self-evident. These elements of daily quarry and asphalt operations will reach far beyond the center of town. (On the news recently, they were talking about cancer pockets in Camden, Maine, that are now associated with a mining site from across the water. This kind of circumstance is not new, nor is it a surprise when, after assurances from companies about the limited parameters of risks to communities, they were wrong and it is far too late.)

Please decide against an industry in our town that has such highly associated risks, dangers that far outweigh tax or possible political benefits. While development is important to our community and its members, an asphalt plant and quarry, even if superbly operated, will deeply threaten our health and quality of life. While this kind of project may inevitably have to be in someone’s back yard, does it have to be in ours?

Donna Waterman

Gorham