DURHAM – District Court Judge Paul A. Cote Jr. has ruled that Laurence Emerson has been maintaining an unlicensed auto graveyard/junkyard on his Old Brunswick Road property and has violated the terms of an earlier consent agreement. In his May 30 judgment, Cote sided with the town of Durham.

Cote imposed a $1,000 penalty and ordered Emerson to pay $1,500 to the town for attorney’s fees. He also ordered Emerson to remove from his property all but 30 of his junked vehicles and to screen the remaining vehicles “by appropriate fencing” from Old Brunswick Road and Plummer Mill Road.

Emerson had contended that he was following an April 28, 2000, consent agreement with the town.

But Cote concluded that he didn’t need to resolve the issue of whether the defendant’s unlicensed operations were permitted by that agreement since Emerson had violated its terms. One section of the agreement required Emerson to remove all the tires from his property within 36 months of signing the agreement and to do it at the rate of 3,000 tires a year.

The judge noted that both parties had “grossly underestimated” the number of the tires to be removed. He also noted that Emerson had admitted removing less than 3,000 tires in the first two years of the agreement and “essentially none” the third year.

The judge also concluded that Emerson violated a provision to provide screening.

In his testimony, Emerson had said he was negotiating an arrangement with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to remove the tires, presently estimated to exceed 65,000, from his property.

Cote ordered Emerson to promptly comply with the terms of any DEP agreement or directive concerning the tires. He also said the used tires were to be removed from Emerson’s property by May 30, 2004.

If Emerson complies with all aspects of the court order by May 30, 2004, he would be entitled to have an auto/graveyard license for the rest of 2004, “otherwise he may again be prosecuted by the town for operating without an appropriate license,” according to Cote’s judgment.

Town Attorney G. Curtis Webber said this judgment represents the culmination of a long effort by the town get Emerson to clean up his junkyard.

Emerson had told the judge that he thought he’d received a junkyard license for this year. “In fact, it turned out that the matter had been tabled and that no license had been issued,” Webber said.

This court case is the latest of many by both the town and state regarding property belonging to the Emerson family.

A large tire dump adjacent to Laurence Emerson’s current junkyard was started decades ago by his father, the late John Emerson. The father’s site eventually grew to more than 12 million tires, according the elder Emerson’s estimate. It was considered at one time one of the largest tire dumps in Maine. That part of the property was taken over by the DEP, which has been cleaning up the property for several years.

Hundreds of thousands of tires were shredded a few years ago through an agreement with the state and used in highway construction projects, and roads were created through the site with the help of the National Guard to reduce the fire hazard.