The leader of the drive acknowledges he has no proof gravel pits are harming water.
By Seth Golden
Special to the Sun Journal

SABATTUS – Six Sabattus Hill Huggers turned out Tuesday night to lobby selectmen to place a moratorium on all gravel pit operations in town.

“I think we should have a moratorium on all pits,” said David Dalphonse, the head of the Hill Huggers.

Earlier in the day after a protest at Town Hall, Dalphonse presented town officials with a petition asking the Planning Board to honor the performance standards of the “Site Plan Review Ordinance.”

The petition also requests a public hearing in which the Hill Huggers questions about mining activity in Sabattus can be addressed.

The petition has 203 signatures, Dalphonse said.

“This is a preventative type thing,” he said, adding that excavators refueling over aquifers pose the threat of potential petroleum contamination from the equipment.

But, Dalphonse said, he has no evidence of any actual contamination to the town’s water supply by excavators and other gravel pit equipment.

“I have no proof,” he said.

Each person on the petition must be verified as both a registered voter and a town citizen, said William Luce, chairman of the selectmen.

“We will go from there,” he said, adding he saw some signers were from Jay, among other outside towns.

Selectmen cannot change an ordinance, Luce said.

“It has to go to a town meeting,” he said.

After some short discussion, selectmen declined to comment further and said that they would seek a legal opinion from Skelton, Taintor & Abbott, or from the Maine Municipal Association.

“It’s not fair for us to comment” and make the town liable, Luce said.

“It’s reasonable,” Dalphonse said of the selectmen’s decision to seek a legal opinion.

Dalphonse lives at 43 F. Sanborn Road on the east shore of Sabattus Lake. A gravel pit owned by St. Laurent & Son Excavating is approximately 60 feet from his house.

Background

Earlier in the year, Dalphonse and his Hill Huggers lobbied selectmen to bring that pit into compliance with town zoning code by making its owners get a permit.

But town officials told Dalphonse then that the pit is grandfathered.

In a side issue, Dalphonse and St. Laurent & Son are involved in a lawsuit over whether the contractor has been digging on Dalphonse’s property.

The hearings for that lawsuit have concluded, Dalphonse said at Tuesday night’s selectmen’s meeting.

Both sides are now awaiting a decision, he said.