GEORGETOWN – The Planning Board is considering whether to issue a special permit for what neighbors say is an “illegal” sand mining operation on the 100-year-old Zibell Farm or ZFarm at 214 North St.
The mining operation, according to the neighbors, started four years ago shortly after John (Pete) Zibell passed away, but the tempo of large dump trucks removing tons of sand appears to have escalated since May, several neighbors testified at a Planning Board public hearing.
They said the very loud trucks arrive at 6:15 a.m. daily and maintain operations until at least 4 p.m. Stacey Groomes, a neighbor, told the board her house shakes most of the day.
Todd Champlain, of Robles Excavating, who was representing Kathy Potter, the current farm owner, told the Planning Board the farm is removing the soil and plans to replace it with high quality soil to create an organic farm. He said the 30-acre farm is replacing soil 5 acres at a time.
He said the farm’s attorney has advised that the town does not have the right to regulate the agricultural activities. His claim was based on an attorney’s opinion of the town’s “Right to Farm” bylaw plus state and federal laws protecting agriculture, he said.
The Planning Board disagreed. According to chair Harry LaCortiglia, the board believed it has the right under the town’s Zoning laws to require the farm to apply for special permits to remove the sand and to ensure that it is replaced with fill soil that has been certified to be clean by a third party.
One neighbor asked how deep the sand excavation is, but Champlain declined to answer.
Ron Borenstein, an attorney with Johnson & Borenstein of Andover, who represented farm neighbors, Peter and Beth Gramolini, said the farm has been operating “an unpermitted, illegal earth removal operation.”
“It is hard to accept the story that the activities going on on that farm are to support an organic farm,” Borenstein said. “They have turned a classic farm, 100 years old, into a sand pit.”
Borenstein called the sand removal an “industrial size operation” that is capable of removing “tens of thousands of cubic yards.” And the sand is being replaced with “asphalt millings and loads of contractor debris. It does not add up.”
Another neighbor, Mary O’Malley compared the farm today to a gravel pit, which she said is a very profitable business. “Is that what’s going on here?” she asked.
The Planning Board has scheduled a visit to the farm this week, but Dillon Brown, an attorney for the Parker River Landing condominiums, asked the board to require the farm to discontinue work until the board could see the property.
Several neighbors said they doubt if work will stop, and the mountains of sand that have been excavated will be removed.
The board did not require the farm to stop work, but LaCortiglia asked Champlain to be “a good neighbor” and discontinue temporarily the trucks removing the sand.
According to observers, that request went unheeded. Following the public hearing last Wednesday, dump trucks showed up frequently on Thursday and Friday to be loaded with screened sand.
“It takes about five or six minutes to load a truck,” one observer said.
The Town Common followed one of the trucks to a New Hampshire concrete company, a possible buyer of the screened sand.
The Planning Board will continue consideration of the ZFarm sand mining activities on July 23. ♦
Trucks rolling out of the Zibell sand mining operation cross both lanes of North Street to make the turn.
What Does a Sand Mining Operation Look Like?
For neighbors who are unaware of the sources of noise and just see all the trucks lining up and coming and going every 10 minutes or so, this view from less than two weeks ago shows the sand/gravel screener (lower left) – one of the sources of the excavation’s noises and vibrations. Parker River Landing residential homes (built 20 years ago) on the former site of Georgetown Sand & Gravel are visible at far upper left. Large equipment including an excavator deep in one of the pits is shown. Piles of sand and gravel throughout…
Area shown is one portion of farm land now being mined to estimated depths of 20 feet or more.
A small corn field to lower right of the area above is not visible in this, one of many views.
Residents can easily see this nearly-public display of activities from the informal walking path which runs along the back of the property.
Out front, each 30-35 yard truck leaving the property yields the owner approx. $450 according to the town’s conservation commissioner who states that the project is fully allowed by the farm and no intervention by the planning board is required.
