SWAMPSCOTT — Nearly 30 residents showed up to Tuesday’s Select Board meeting and voiced their concerns over the recent quarry blasts from Aggregate Industries (AI).
For about an hour and a half, the upset residents shared their stories while neighbors, Select Board members and the AI representatives in attendance listened. One resident, who has lived on Ellen Street for 23 years, alleged her home has endured crumbling stairways, walls and cracks in her stone fireplace from the years of quarry blasting. Another resident, who went by the name “Pat,” said she came home from an end-of-August vacation, days after the confirmed Aug. 30 blasting, to find her glass sliding door shattered.
“I’ve had that same door since 1982, and I have firefighter and police officer neighbors who kept an eye on my house, so I know nobody vandalized it or tried to break in,” Pat said. “It cost me $1,000 to fix it.”
Christine Erickson has lived on Essex Street with her family since 2000. She spoke at the meeting and detailed all the damage she alleges her home has endured from the blastings, with most of the structural cracks happening from blasts after 2015.
“We’ve endured thousands of dollars in repairs to cracked ceilings, crumbling stairs, retaining wall and cracks in our foundation,” Erickson told The Item on Wednesday, “as well as breathing in dust and having filthy cars, homes and furniture. All this with no compensation. Enough is enough.”
Aside from home damage, another major concern raised by town residents was the film of dust that is collecting on their cars, windows, and, for some, inside their houses. One resident told meeting attendees that she already is a cancer survivor and, given the dust from the blasts has gone untested recently, she doesn’t want her grandkids to fall ill in the future from years of inhaling it.
Nichols Street resident Ana Lanzilli got up to speak with a vial in her hand that contained a dust sample, which she said she collected from inside her home. Lanzilli also said that twice in the last two weeks, she has come home to random AI-owned electronic apparatuses on her lawn. Neither her nor her husband were informed it would be happening, she said.
“I have two young daughters and at no time should Aggregate be on my property without informing me with prior notice,” Lanzilli said. “This is completely unacceptable and moving forward they need to contact homeowners.”
Ken McKay Jr. said his family has lived in their Fairview Avenue home since his great grandfather built it in 1910. The quarry blast rumbles have become a norm to them, he said, given they have been happening since the 1930s. His family has spent generations repairing structural damage, which he alleges is from the decades of enduring quarry blasts.
In regards to the film of dust that show up shortly after the blasts, he said that has always been a problem. He said he remembers winters when the film of blasting dust would create “black snow.”
“It seems as though now we have a Select Board that is not pandering to a corporation and is instead asking hard questions and saying we need to get to the bottom of this,” McKay told The Item on Wednesday.
Before resident comments were heard, Spellios addressed the room and said he is convinced the recent blasts are different from past years, and he has felt more than one of the recent blasts in his Olmsted neighborhood home, which is about 1.6 miles away from AI.
Spellios then opened the floor up to Fire Chief Kevin Breen and John Picariello, chair of the Earth Removal Advisory Committee (ERAC), who presented a powerpoint and stated they studied the blast reports, and all the recent blasts were “legal shots.”
“The recent blasts were perceived in vastly different ways by residents and we are aware of that,” Breen said.
Picariello added that ERAC is looking to make changes to AI’s permit for next June, but Spellios jumped in and said the town can’t wait until next year for change to happen. Breen mentioned a call list that residents can get on to be informed of blasts, but when Spellios asked who knew how to get onto the list, only three residents raised their hands.
“I’m embarrassed by this,” Spellios said. “We can have all the bells and whistles but if no one is using the systems in place then they aren’t working … “We (the Select Board) hold the signatures on this permit. So, Aggregate you own it, but we hold responsibility, too.”
Kurt Hines, AI operations manager, spoke on the company’s behalf after the resident comments. It hasn’t been easy, he said, but he and the company appreciated residents coming down to address their concerns.
“There have been a lot of items raised and I don’t have all the answers right now,” Hines said. “We do know we have reached a lower level in the quarry and there have been more blasts this year.”
Spellios asked Hines to send over copies of all state and local permits that AI has in place, and then stated the Select Board plans to come back in one month and discuss it again.
“Our expectation is that change isn’t going to wait until June 30,” said Spellios. “This conversation is only the beginning of this process.”
