WESTBROOK – Pike Industries’ plan to blast at its Spring Street quarry in Westbrook is once again facing a legal snag.

The attorney for Smiling Hill Farms filed a motion this week to enforce an automatic stay pending the outcome of its appeal to stop operations at the quarry.

City Administrator Jerre Bryant said Monday it was the city’s understanding that there was no stay in place at the time it issued the permit to allow blasting and posted the blasting schedule on the Westbrook website.

“We’re operating under the understanding there isn’t one [a stay], but we’re waiting on direction from the court,” Bryant said.

Despite getting a permit and notifying nearby area residents the blasting would take place on Sept. 13, weather kept Pike from its plans. According to Tom Spellman, the company’s crushing manager for Maine and New Hampshire, Pike plans on blasting on Sept. 27 unless notified otherwise by the court.

David Silk, of the law firm Curtis Thaxter in Portland, who is representing Smiling Hill Farm, said the farm is appealing the consent order between the city and Pike, which regulates quarry operations like blasting sound levels and how many trips trucks can make in and out of the quarry each day.

Silk said Smiling Hill Farm, a dairy farm and abutter to the property, is arguing that the consent order bypassed contract zone procedures.

“Pike has no right to undertake any activities in its quarry until and unless this Court affirms the Superior Court’s approval of the consent decree. By the terms of the consent decree, Pike cannot re-commence any blasting until that decree becomes effective. As a judgment, the decree is not effective until this appeal is resolved,” read the motion, filed Sept. 16.

Smiling Hill Farm is the lone abutter still continuing to pursue a way to stop Pike from utilizing its quarry. Artel, which once fought alongside the farm in an appeal against Pike, Idexx and a group of residents in Birdland and on Spring Street, have all settled their concerns with Pike over the quarry.

“It started out four years ago with Pike saying they had grandfathered rights on the property and now, three years later, the blasting limits are half of what the state allows,” said Tim Bachelder, who lives in the area of the quarry and has spoken on behalf of the neighborhood surrounding the Pike property.

“There are provisions around dust and noise. We’re light years from where we started four years ago. Time will tell, but we have a pretty good relationship with Pike, there are good lines of communication. I’m not anticipating any problems. I’m going to sit back and assume everything’s fine,” he said.

For the past four years, Pike and Westbrook officials have been working toward a blasting agreement that works for both residents and businesses.

The consent order, which had gone back and forth between the Maine Business Court Justice Thomas Humphrey and City Council four times for language changes, provides protection to abutters that the quarry work will not interrupt their daily lives. The court gave its approval earlier this summer.

Silk said he hopes the motion will be decided by Sept. 27, the day Pike is set to blast again.