Farm owner arrested in Westbrook quarry dispute
Westbrook police have charged the owner of Smiling Hill Farm with criminal trespassing for trying to observe blasting at a quarry owned by Pike Industries, which abuts the farm.
The American Journal reported farm owner Warren Knight, a vocal opponent of a consent agreement between Pike and the city regarding blasting at the company’s Westbrook quarry, said he intended to observe blasting scheduled to take place Friday night and Saturday morning.
Knight told the paper he believed he was within his rights to observe the blasts from adjacent property owned by Central Maine Power Co. Police arrested Knight on trespassing charges after complaints from Pike and after a surveyor from CMP verified that he was attempting to observe the company’s blasting from CMP property.
Knight told the paper that he takes issue with Pike’s consent agreement with the city because it calls for a 100-foot vegetative buffer between the quarry and neighboring veterinary diagnostics company Idexx but only a 20-foot buffer between the quarry and his farm.
The quarry’s blasting has long been a source of tension between Pike and its neighbors.
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