Neighbors protesting a proposed quarry in Windham are now petitioning to change the town ordinance and enforce stricter regulations on rock quarries, gravel pits and loam removal.

While the revised ordinance would only affect expansions or new operations, farmers worry it could prevent them from harvesting rocks and loam from their land.

The ordinance change is prompted by a public outcry by Nash Road neighbors. For the past two months, the neighbors have protested to town officials that a rock quarry proposed for the corner of Nash Road and Route 302 would disrupt the rural setting of their neighborhood, damage wells, pose a health danger to residents and force nearby businesses to close down.

The proposed quarry encompasses 75 acres of hilly terrain off Nash Road where developer Peter Busque plans to blast for rock. An accessory “concrete batch plant” would be set on site, alongside two rock crushers, to pump cement dust, quarried rock and water into concrete trucks for mixing.

Both Busque’s quarry and the accessory concrete plant are now under review by the Windham Planning Board.

The Planning Board has contracted out a “third party review” of all impact studies submitted by Busque to get a second opinion on how noise, dust, and traffic from the quarry would affect neighbors living nearby.

But neighbors argue the town’s regulations are too loose and are petitioning to have the town adopt a new “mineral extraction” ordinance written by their attorney Scott Anderson.

The new ordinance imposes tighter restrictions on mineral extraction to “protect” residents from the potential negative impacts from quarry or gravel pit operations.

These regulations would “apply to all new mineral extraction operations, expansions over five acres and new loam stripping exceeding one quarter of an acre,” the ordinance reads.

The ordinance extends the buffer between quarry boundaries and a neighbor’s houses or business from 200 to 1,000 feet. Proposed mineral extraction will not be allowed to “generate vibrations, fumes, odors, dust or glare detectable at the property boundary.”

Quarry operations would be required to dig no lower than four feet above the water table and the quarry operator would be liable for damage to nearby wells caused by a quarry.

Also, the mineral extraction operations would not be allowed to exceed five years without reapplication and approval from the Planning Board.

The aim of the ordinance is to allow all quarries and gravel pits to exist as they are while imposing these regulations on new expansions or new operations.

“The idea here is not to target anyone’s mineral extraction operation, but to bring Windham up to date,” Anderson said. “If you’re going to operate (a quarry), you have to do it in a way that it won’t affect your neighbors.”

Gathering signatures

Midday last Friday, Windham residents Carl Russell and Peter Gionis were out petitioning for the ordinance change at the North Windham Post Office. Both Russell and Peter own businesses near the proposed quarry and both say they would have to close their businesses if the quarry were put in place.

Gionis, owner of Northeastern Motel on Route 302 across from the quarry site, is worried that quarry blasts would disturb his guests’ sleep and create traffic trouble on Route 302.

“It’s a mess on that corner, that corner is the worst,” Gionis said. “And at five o’clock in the morning, the quarry would have those trucks and blasting. I have nothing against Mr. Busque. But the quarry will ruin my business.”

Carl Russell, nearby resident and owner of Avant Garde Pet Care – a kennel 800 feet from the quarry site, has spoken out against the quarry again and again, arguing that quarry blasts would force him to close his business.

“Even if it didn’t affect my business, I’d still be out here because I really like this town and I don’t want to move,” Russell said. “I’ve talked with a lot of people who say they wouldn’t have moved to Windham if they had known a quarry operation in a residential neighborhood was possible.”

Farm effect

Conversely, farm owners are now apprehensive about the new ordinance and how it could affect their livelihood.

Farming in Windham has been in decline for many decades and forced many farmers to sell loam, gravel and rock from their farmland to pay the bills.

“We’ve gone out of milking cows cause there’s no money in it,” said John Morrell, who owns a former dairy farm and construction business on Route 302. “If they put these ordinances in, you can’t do nothing to your farmland, well, what’s a farmer to do?”

Morrell said there’s been much talk among farmers about the ordinance change, but many are too shy to speak out against it.

Attorney Anderson however said the goal of the ordinance is to allow farmers to continue harvesting stone and loam from their land and that they would be exempt from the town’s regulation of mineral extraction.

“This won’t change any of the existing exemptions,” Anderson said. “This is not an attempt to regulate any small use, but in particular to go after people who are operating large industrial operations.”

As for Busque’s proposed quarry, the 1,000-foot buffer setbacks alone would quash his quarry venture.

“I’m left with a mohawk,” Busque said of what his quarry operation would look like if the ordinance were to go into effect. “I’ll only have a little strip left in the middle that I can do anything with and, effectively, stopping the quarry.”

Busque said it is unfair to change the ordinance after he’s already submitted his application and designed his quarry around the town’s existing ordinance.

“I feel like I’m being hosed,” Busque said. “The neighbors are half-a-mile away. It’s not like it’s beside a neighborhood. It’s a couple houses that are far enough away that they won’t hear anything.”

With roughly 1,200 signatures to gather in coming weeks, petitioners will continue to solicit signatures in hopes of broadening this quarry debate and forcing town officials to adopt further restrictions on new mineral extraction operations and protections for nearby residents.

Peter Gionis and his daughter Eugenia talk with Shawn Theberge about a petition to force the town of Windham to adopt stricter regulations of quarries and gravel pits.

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