1/19/1988 - Laserfiche WebLink

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PP" - JAN 1 S 1988 BOOK 70 ME 640 land in usable condition should the owner not complete his operation." He then read further statements made in the Minutes of 1974 which indicated the Board's only concern had to do with the amount of bond put up to restore the property. Commissioner Bowman believed pumping the water off site is a very serious violation because it lowers the water table and the entire neighborhood may be faced with a salt water intrusion problem as a result. Mr. Smith wished to make the point that they were not dewatering surrounding property. They have a holding area surrounding the site that they pump into that recharges the water around the perimeter of the mine. This recharge area reached capacity, and that is when the dewatering operation started. Debate continued at length as to how to penalize for the violation, the severity of the violation, whether it was a deliberate violation, whether the $10,000 bond was intended only for restoration, what is a sufficient penalty to prevent this from happening again and to keep others from doing the same, etc. Commissioner Bird continued to stress that he had always felt the bond was intended for restoration and not to be punitive. He did not know any other permits we have that are quite that punitive, but Chairman Scurlock pointed out that we have heavy fines under our tree protection ordinance. Commissioner Bird assumed this happened in a period of very heavy rainfall, and if the ground was that saturated, then they were not drawing down the water table of those next door by pumping off site. Commissioner Bowman did not believe this had anything to do with saturation. She felt it was simply a mistake of the engineer and believed he went in and redesigned the retention areas after this occurred. Director Keating confirmed that the retention area was not as designed on the site plan. 80