A Gorham construction company finally got half of what it’s been seeking for 19 months – quarry and blasting approvals – but still is without permission to build and operate an accompanying asphalt plant.
“We’re getting there,” Danny Shaw, co-owner of Shaw Brothers Construction Inc., said, after a five-hour Gorham Planning Board meeting adjourned at 11 p.m. Monday.
In August 2006, the construction company introduced its plans to the town for a multi-million quarry and asphalt plant on a 121-acre site zoned industrial on Mosher Road. Since then, opponents have contended in several public hearings since January 2007 that the project would produce health risks, increased truck traffic, ground water issues and noise. The company and its consultants have said the project would be a clean operation and wouldn’t diminish quality of life for neighbors.
The Gorham Planning Board will continue its review of the asphalt plant at 6 p.m. on Monday in Gorham Municipal Center, 75 South St. The board will determine whether the public comment would be heard in the meeting. The board has tentatively scheduled Monday, April 14, as another possible meeting.
“Hopefully, one more meeting will wrap it up,” Walt Stinson of Sebago Technics, the project engineer, said after Monday’s meeting.
Initially, the construction company wants to produce asphalt with a portable plant. It would eventually be replaced with a $10 million permanent plant.
The Maine Department of Transportation is requiring a widening of Mosher Road (Route 237) to allow traffic to pass trucks slowing to enter the plant. The construction company plans to use material from the quarry for the highway widening and to construct roads into the site.
Early public hearings on the project packed the council chambers where meetings are held. Only seven people attended Monday’s meeting, where one person spoke in favor and four others opposed it.
Stinson said that the project has received permits, including one for storm water management, from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
Approval of the project is too late to produce pavement for the Gorham bypass, which Shaw Brothers Construction Inc., is constructing.
“We’re more than a year behind on this project now,” Shaw said during Monday’s meeting.
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