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Gravel pit battle apt= to go to court
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Cape Cod Times (Hyannis, MA)-August 15, 2003
Author: KEVIN DENNEHY

BOURNE - The survival of a = Bournedale sand and gravel operation will likely be decided in the courtroom.

A day after Bourne's zoning board of appeals shut down the Cape Cod Aggregates pit because of neighborhood complaints, a lawy= er for the company yesterday vowed to appeal it.

Attorney Diane Tillotson hopes either the state Superior Court or state Land Court can reach a decis= ion that will satisfy neighbors who have grown weary of the expanded operation without shutting down the business altogether.

But the legal fight could be a long one, during which time all digging may be forbidden.

"In both the Land Court and the Superior Court, = that process could take years," said Bourne Town Counsel Robert Troy.

Neighbors of the gravel pit, located off the Scenic Highway, in recent months have complained that clouds of dust and rattling trucks on the site have made their lives intolerable.

Cape Cod Aggregates, which bought the property in 1995, mines sand and gravel for use in construction projects.

The company mines down to within 30 feet of the water table across la= rge parts of a 126-acre site, and can deliver more than 100 truckloads each day= .

In a unanimous vote, the zoning board conceded t= hat the sand and gravel operation had grown so large in recent years that it wa= s no longer protected by assumed "grandfathered" rights.

What's more, the board is forcing the company to restore the land after decades of digging. Among other things, Cape Cod Aggregates will have to grade the land to remove steep slopes and plant saplings to replace trees cleared away.

The zoning board could file an official written cease-and-desist order within a week.

While Tillotson was = unsure yesterday whether Cape Cod Aggregates must stop digging while the appeal is pending, Bourne's town counsel said it depends on how the cease order is worded.

Essentially, Troy said, the town administrator, the board of selectmen and himself will decide if the order implies that the operation is a public nuisance.
If the business is shut down, company officials predict it could cost several jobs, and cripple the = Cape's construction industry.

Nine of Cape Cod Aggregates' 50 employees work at the Bournedale site. The company also has a pit= and processing plant in Hyannis.

About 3,153 tons of sand and gravel, in 95 truckloads, is removed from the Bourne site daily, providing much of the material for concrete and asphalt uses across the region.

One regular customer is Cape Cod Ready Mix, which operates concrete plants in Eastham, Orleans, Yarmouth and Carve= r. According to general manager Peter Joy, the company buys all of its sand and gravel from Cape Cod Aggregates - some 200,000 tons a year.

Losing the Bournedale site, he said, will harm his business and others like it, as well as the customers who depend on them. "This would trigger a major trickle-down effect onto everyone that works in construction and then onto every homeowner," Joy said in a letter to the zoning board.

Tillotson said Bourn= e's zoning board could have taken a more creative approach if it wanted to, but decided to "punt" the issue to the courts.

One board member, John Priestley, said he would = have preferred imposing conditions on the site rather than close the business outright.

For instance, he would have liked to require reg= ular inspections or impose strict borders.

But he said strict town zoning rules allowed the board to either shut down the business or not. "We were just torn,&quo= t; he said. "Our bylaws just don't provide a mechanism for us to (introdu= ce conditions)."

The courts, he said, are likely to be a more app= ropriate venue to settle the differences between Cape Cod Aggregates and its neighbo= rs.

Record Number: 0FCF3DDE531BDB12