Pike’s quarry clears another legal hurdle
A Cumberland County Superior Court judge has given preliminary approval to the 2010 consent agreement between Pike Industries and the city of Westbrook over the company’s quarry operations.
According to The American Journal, Judge Thomas Humphrey’s approval of the consent agreement came with the condition that the city enact an amendment to its zoning ordinance spelling out performance standards for Pike. The judge also asked the city to give a status report to the court within 90 days.
However, the family that owns neighboring Smiling Hill Farm told the newspaper it expects to continue pursuing other pending legal objections to Pike’s quarry. And David Bertoni, a Lewiston attorney representing Artel, a manufacturer of sensitive fluid-measuring equipment that has also opposed the quarry, told the newspaper that getting the amendment to the zoning ordinance written and approved is not a done deal, nor is the final stage of approval for the agreement in superior court.
In June a Maine Supreme Judicial Court judge sent the 2010 consent agreement back to the lower court for further review, with some findings favoring Westbrook and Pike Industries and others favoring the opponents of the quarry operation.
Pike has been at odds with neighbors to its quarry ever since the company began stepping up operations there, including seeking permission to conduct production blasting. The problem came to a head in 2009, when Idexx Laboratories, which also abuts the quarry property, threatened to cancel its plans to build a $50 million corporate headquarters on its own property. Idexx eventually reached an agreement with Pike and the city, but the other abutters continued legal efforts to force the company to address their concerns about the quarry and the city’s approval process.
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