PARIS – A judge heard oral arguments this week in a nearly three-year-old controversy over a proposed water trucking facility in Fryeburg.

Poland Spring Water Corp., owned by Nestle Waters North America, has proposed a Route 302 facility to fill trucks with spring water piped in from Denmark. Although the Fryeburg Planning Board initially granted a permit for the facility, it was overturned by the Board of Appeals.

After the matter was presented to Justice Roland Cole in Oxford County Superior Court in 2006, it was remanded to the town’s Planning Board to determine if the facility constitutes a low-impact use. The Planning Board determined that it does not, and the Board of Appeals upheld the decision.

Cole was also the presiding justice at Wednesday’s hearing.

Poland Spring has filed an appeal against the town and the Western Maine Residents for Rural Living, a group opposing the facility. The appeal seeks to vacate the latest Board of Appeals decision and have the Planning Board reinstate the land-use permit.

The Western Maine Residents have argued that the facility represents an improper use of the town’s rural residential zone and will increase traffic hazards, noise, and pollution.

Attorney Philip Ahrens, who appeared on behalf of Poland Spring, argued that the matter was sent back to the town on a false assumption.

“We believe the court was misled by a two-sentence quotation from the comprehensive plan,” Ahrens said.

Ahrens said the question of whether the facility constituted a low-impact use in terms of traffic was taken from the town’s comprehensive plan, which does not contain any permit criteria. Ahrens said this led to confusion on the Planning Board due to the assumption that a separate requirement had to be met.

“The Planning Board had already determined that the facility was non-intensive after a thorough discussion of traffic issues,” he said.

Ahrens further argued that the uses of the town’s rural residential zone include schools, hospitals and airports, each adding a significant amount of traffic and noise to the area.

Scott Anderson, representing the Western Maine Residents, said that the comprehensive plan informs the Planning Board about appropriate uses for zones. He said the Planning Board had not addressed the issue of whether the facility fit the definition for an omitted use in the rural residential zone until the court remanded its decision.

Anderson further argued that the facility will add 24-hour traffic to a high-crash zone of Route 302. He said the former Planning Board chairman, Gene Bergoffen, was recused by a vote of the board after he was found to have ties to the National Private Truck Council, and that the board may have made a different decision if they had known of the link.

Anderson is asking the court to either uphold the Planning Board’s decision that the facility is not a low-impact use; to vacate the original permit approval due to Bergoffen’s potential conflict of interest; or to make a final decision on the 2006 court case, which Anderson argues has not officially been concluded.