By Gail Geraghty,Staff Writer

OTISFIELD – Gordon Chamberlain knows he has upset a lot of people in town by calling attention to the problem of illegal junkyards.

They have called him a troublemaker.

That’s OK with him, he said.

“If I get a lot of resistance, I know I’m onto something,” said Chamberlain in a recent interview. “Ultimately, if the goal is right, you’ll be all right.”

Selectman Mark Cyr said Otisfield’s junkyard problem is part of a statewide problem, and he agrees that more enforcement of junkyard laws is necessary.

“My attitude is that (illegal junkyards) won’t be tolerated,” Cyr said. “We will work with people to get the situation corrected. We can make a huge dent in it this summer.”

Chamberlain’s neighbor on the Peaco Hill Road, Barbara Kane, is one person in town who is upset with Chamberlain’s tactics. She spoke out at a recent selectmen’s meeting and accused him of going on other people’s land in a kind of “witch hunt” to find junkyard violators.

Chamberlain, a Master Maine Guide who says he discovered many of the junkyards while hunting on private lands, began asking the town to enforce its junkyard laws several years ago. He said his concerns were not addressed by selectmen at the time.

Referring to part-time Code Enforcement Officer Rodney Smith, Chamberlain said, “Rodney is a good man, but I believe he’s being restricted in his ability to function” by selectmen.

To make his point, a few years back Chamberlain hauled a bunch of junk onto his property that he trucked from the Casco Bulky Waste Facility, the town’s official disposal site for bulky waste.

Near the road where his 40-acre property has a scenic view of the countryside, he piled up an old junk truck, refrigerator, old freezers, tires, stove pipe and wood.

“I went as far as to put an old oil tank there, and drew a sad face on it,” he said.

Then he waited for the town to order him to apply for a junkyard permit.

At first, the town took no action. Then last year, as the town began its annual review of licensed junkyards, Chamberlain got his wish; the town ordered him to apply for a junkyard permit.

That review is now under way.

Chamberlain said he has identified more than 100 illegal junkyards in town – either visible or not visible from the road – through global positioning technology. Two junkyards belong to the owners of Camp Arcadia, a summer camp off Route 121. After Chamberlain brought the Arcadia situation to the town’s attention, the town asked the camp owners to put up a gate and clean the property up, and they have been complying, said Administrative Assistant Marianne Izzo-Morin.

Chamberlain said the town needs to take it one step further. “Arcadia should be required to have a junkyard permit,” he said. That way, the town can have some measure of control over its use, and be able to perform inspections.

“The first step is to get the visible ones permitted,” Chamberlain said.

He also complained about an area across from the East Otisfield Free Baptist Church, owned by Danny Peaco, that was being used by Garry Dyer in his camp maintenance business to store old docks.

The Department of Environmental Protection was notified, and ordered the practice stopped. The land is now used by the town as an auxiliary sand and gravel pit.

“I’m not in any way trying to say that the people who are running the town are bad people, no way,” Chamberlain said. “It’s just that change is difficult sometimes.”

Chamberlain added, “What I do know is that the law should be followed. What we’re interested in is not letting this get to the point where it’s going to affect our property values.”