PARIS – Citing the possibility of forthcoming legal action, Selectman Bruce Hanson on Monday flatly declined to answer questions that have been raised about his involvement in past environmental violations at the town gravel pit.
Hanson commented briefly on the issue before reading from a statement that said any “statements of wrongdoing are false.”
Selectman Barbara Payne has accused Hanson of improper action while serving on the board earlier. At that time, the board never formally voted to authorize a logging operation in the gravel pit, which she says resulted in Maine Department of Environmental Protection fines against the town in 2002.
Hanson has said the logging Payne has referred to was related to expansions of the gravel pit in the 1960s and 1970s. He has repeatedly accused Payne of confusing the past expansion with a more recent logging operation there.
Before reading his statement Monday, he said the town is allowed to cut trees “within the 75-foot buffer” of the Little Androscoggin River, and “dead and dangerous trees can be removed.”
As for Payne’s assertions that Hanson and former Town Manager Steve McAllister hired a logger to remove trees from the pit without putting out a request for bids or having the board vote on the selection of a logger, Hanson made no apologies.
“Each and every member of the board was asked about the project and said to continue,” he read from his statement Monday.
After it was revealed the project was not put out to bid, Payne asked what the town’s bid policy was at the time.
Town Manager Sharon Jackson said projects expected to cost more than $2,500 were to be put out to bid.
According to Department of Environmental Protection documents, the town paid a total of $6,950 in penalties and fees after the department found the gravel pit had been expanded by about 13 acres since 1970.
Aerial photographs and a ground survey showed that the excavation at the east end of the pit had been done within 75 feet of the Little Androscoggin River, violating state requirements that a “75-foot natural buffer strip be maintained between the excavation and a protected natural resource.”
The town was also found not to have filed a “Notice of Intent to Comply” while expanding the gravel pit by more than five acres, and was found not to have paid “past annual dues” to the Maine Borrow Pit Fund.
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