Court decision goes against Westbrook's Pike quarry accord

WESTBROOK — Rock blasting set to begin later this month at Pike Industries’ Spring Street quarry may have to wait, following a June 14 decision by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court that strikes down a 2010 consent agreement reached between the company and the city of Westbrook.

In a 28-page ruling issued Thursday, the court said Westbrook does have a right to enter into a consent agreement with Pike and can declare its operations “grandfathered” from current zoning regulations that would otherwise ban the blasting activity.

However, the court partially sided with two other businesses, Artel Inc. and Smiling Hill Farm, that appealed the agreement by claiming it was reached illegally and largely out of public view. Westbrook cannot enforce any of the performance guarantees in the consent agreement, the court said, unless those standards are written into local zoning ordinances, or else a special “contract zone” is created, codifying stipulations of the consent agreement. The agreement has been remanded back to the Maine Business and Consumer Court, which approved it in 2010, for further review.

“All we ever wanted was to have this process worked out in the light of day,” Artel’s facilities manager, Jack Wood, said Thursday. “So, we are indeed pleased with the court’s decision.”

After Pike announced new operations at the plant in 2008, nearby Idexx Laboratories threatened to call off a planned expansion of its own facility, citing concern that blast vibrations could interfere with the delicate nature of its diagnostic work. In the 2010 agreement, Pike agreed to limit itself to no more than eight days of blasting per year, while also shifting blast sites to create a larger buffer zone between its quarry and the Idexx building.

“This case will now proceed through the ordinarily zoning procedures that should have applied from the first instant and which apply to every other citizen,” said Artel’s attorney, David Bertoni, of Lewiston law firm Brann & Isaacson. “Pike has no more rights than the average Westbrook citizen, and that’s how it should work.”

“The city can create a contract zone, but that’s a process, and it includes the public,” said Smiling Farm owner Warren Knight, who claimed that he was shut out of the city’s talks with Pike and Idexx during the run-up to the consent agreement.

Knight, who claims his livestock are as sensitive to blast vibrations as the technology at Artel, said he felt sacrificed at the alter of Idexx, because the buffer zone actually pushed blasting closer to his fields.

“They wanted to do a deal that was outside the public purview,” said Knight. “Now, this will have to go to the City Council, then the Planning Board, then the Zoning Board of Appeals, and then back to the Planning Board and the City Council, and, throughout that entire process, the public gets to be involved.”

One advantage of public involvement, said Bertoni, may be instance on regular renegotiations, instead of the once-per-decade “re-opener” under which, Bertoni claimed, Pike could unilaterally refuse amendments.

“That’s not a re-opener at all,” he said. “This agreement basically ran forever, as long as there are people on this Earth. Pike could basically do what it wanted, because no resident of Westbrook could say stop.”

Neither Pike officials nor Westbrook City Administrator Jerre Bryant returned requests for comment Thursday afternoon.