Pike scores quarry zoning win
Pike Industries, which operates a Westbrook quarry, won a long-standing zoning battle Monday that will allow the company to continue to blast on site, leaving some neighboring businesses displeased.
The Portland Press Herald reported that the Westbrook City Council voted Monday to change zoning to include performance standards for the quarry that align with an agreement reached by Pike and another company in the city's Five Star Industrial Park.
Over two years ago, Pike and neighboring Idexx Laboratories settled a complaint by Idexx that quarry blasting was affecting the laboratory's manufacturing of sensitive scientific instruments.
The terms of that agreement were then challenged by two other neighboring businesses – Smiling Hill Farm and the bio-pharmaceutical firm Artel – in a complaint that was partially upheld in a Maine Supreme Judicial Court in June.
The ruling found that the city could not legally enforce limitations on Pike's quarry operations without placing performance standards for the quarry – details like when it could blast and how often – into a zoning ordinance or contract zone, which the council did Monday.
Warren Knight, president of Smiling Hill, told the Press Herald that he is still not pleased with the result of the agreement and the performance standards approved Monday.
Pike is a subsidiary of Oldcastle Materials Group, which the company's website states is the largest asphalt producer in the country.
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