AUBURN – Morin Brick hopes to have a federal permit by year’s end to expand clay mining operations off Washington Street.

The company, whose classic red bricks are used for hospitals, offices and college buildings, plans to mine about 30 acres over the next two or three decades.

“We just want clay reserves for a number of years ahead,” said Norm Davis, general manager at the plant.

“It has been about 15 years since we permitted any other areas,” he said. “It takes a long while to extract the clay. At any one time, we wouldn’t be using more than four or five acres.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is taking public comment on the project until July 7, before making a decision on Morin’s permit application. So far, no comments have been received.

A permit is required because the expansion would alter wetlands within the 57-acre parcel fronting Washington Street, south of Moose Brook Road. A new access road, storm water ponds and a crossing over the brook would impact a total of more than seven acres of meadow and forest wetland.

To compensate, Morin Brick proposes wetland enhancement and creation, covering another nine acres in the same parcel. The new wetland would be completed before any mining begins and would provide wildlife habitat, the company said. A wooded buffer of black spruce and Austrian pine is proposed to separate the mine operation from Washington Street.

The actual spots planned for mining are currently used by a local farmer, with permission of the company.

“It will continue to be farmland for a number of years,” Davis said. “And it will be returned to farmland when the mining is completed.”

In the past, Morin Brick has returned about 30 acres on its property back to farmland, after extracting clay from hilly areas. The company digs shallow pits – above the water table – to remove the clay, which is then processed at the plant.

“An area where our office sits used to be a clay pit,” as did a hayfield near Turkey Lane, Davis said.

Operating in Maine since 1912, Morin Brick has been at its Auburn location since the 1930s. Its bricks are sold throughout the northeast United States and Canada.

Buildings at Bates, Colby, Bowdoin colleges, and Harvard and Columbia universities, were built with bricks from Morin. Locally, the bricks can be seen in the sidewalks along Court Street and the new Department of Human Services building in Lewiston.

“Any business has got to grow,” Davis said. “A paper company needs trees. This is our continued source of raw material.”

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