Aggregate fill raising concerns in Saugus

SAUGUS – Aggregate Industries is trucking in fill and setting off alarms with some residents.Town Meeting members Al DiNardo and Janet Leuci have raised some concerns over Aggregate’s plan to bring in 250,000 cubic yards of marine clay to fill in a portion of the quarry.That amount translates into roughly eight trucks per day, or one truck every six minutes, hauling fill up Route 1 to Route 99.Leuci said the trucks, coming in from Cambridge, will travel Route 1 north to the Essex Street overpass where they’ll loop around and pick up Route 99 south.”Why can’t they use the truck route, Route 60 to 99?” Leuci wondered. “It makes more sense to me.”The Essex Street/Route 1 interchange is considered one of the worst in the state, which also makes Leuci leery. DiNardo also noted that there are homes in the area and the trucks will begin running as early as 7:30 a.m.DiNardo said the whole issue has him looking at the bigger picture, which includes the eventual closure of the quarry.”We’ve met with (Aggregate) on many occasions,” he said. “We always hear about closure, that something might be part of the closure plan but they’ve never given the town a formal closure plan.”According to Leuci, the marine clay is being brought in to fill a portion of the quarry that is quite deep and prone to filling with water. Aggregate officials told the Board of Health, which just last week granted the permit that allows for the clay, that it will fill approximately 5 percent of the quarry.Under that premise, DiNardo said it would take six or seven years of constant trucking to fill the entire quarry if that was eventually part of the closure plan.Aggregate officials promised the board it would be back if it does plan to fill the quarry, but Leuci said she found that idea ridiculous. Leuci pointed out that when Revere’s Rowe’s Quarry closed it wasn’t filled in.”The walls of the quarry are 150 feet deep,” she added. “We’ll all be dead and buried by the time they fill that in.”Leuci also said she believed Aggregate has an ulterior motive for bringing in the fill.”The fact is this will be a financial bonanza for them,” she said. “They’re a quarry, they could use their own crushed rock to fill in.”The project is expected to take six or seven months and could begin as early as next week.”I’m worried about making sure what they say will go in there does,” Leuci said. “It’s a lot of trucks.”