A Westbrook high-tech business says it will move if Pike Industries is allowed any mining operation at its quarry in the Five Star Industrial Park.

Artel, which employs 55 people conducting sensitive liquid calibration, said today its work is incompatible with any blasting and excavation of rock from the quarry.

A committee appointed by Mayor Colleen Hilton is trying to craft a compromise that would meet the objections of neighbors in the park but still allow Pike to work the quarry. Some committee members believe no compromise is possible.

Artel chief executive Kirby Pilcher said in a statement today that Westbrook officials courted the company 13 years ago by saying they were working to attract clean, biomedical companies to the park. If the quarry, which had been inactive, is allowed to operate it will make it harder for the city to credibly recruit new businesses, Pilcher said.

Pilcher also said Pike is not a local company, but is owned by a multinational corporation unlike several of the firms in the park that are trying to expand.


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