SAUGUS — Residents expressed their frustrations with speeding trucks that travel through their neighborhoods to reach Holcim’s quarry at the Aggregate Post Closure Committee meeting Monday.
A reclamation process to fill the granite quarry on Route 99, in order to potentially use the space for development projects, began in 2017. Holcim shut down its work at the granite quarry so the area could be redeveloped.
Although the granite quarry has not been operational since the mid-2000s, two asphalt plants and a ready-mix concrete plant at the site have been.
Material for the asphalt plants is sourced from Holcim’s Swampscott quarry, which results in trucks driving through Saugus to reach the asphalt plants. At the meeting to review the ongoing land-reclamation project, residents expressed their grievances with the speed and size of the trucks passing through their neighborhoods.
“It is very dangerous and nerve-wracking to live with,” Mary Lou Howard said. “I have taken a ton of pictures of the trucks and sent them to the state representative, police, and town administration. There are little kids walking over to a pizza shop in my neighborhood and it is so dangerous because of the big trucks driving by so fast. I almost got hit by a truck. Their engines are always on near the gas station and I have complained to the Board of Health but no one responded, so it has just been a long ongoing issue.”
The land-reclamation agreement between Holcim and the town specifies a required route and speed for the drivers, but doesn’t mention any consequences or prescribed disciplinary action if either is violated.
However, the trucks that are speeding to reach the quarry have nothing to do with the reclamation process, as they are driving to the asphalt plants.
“We worked with the police and put up a radar to check who was speeding, exactly what speeds they were going in, and the data went directly to the police,” Holcim Northeast Region Manager Jarrett Temple said. “We told those drivers that they would get cited and suspended if they kept going from these routes at a high speed.”
Temple said that there is a shortage of truck companies and drivers for this work, and that suspending services or business with them would put the reclamation process in jeopardy.
“There are just not enough trucking companies, so we are going to have to work on another approach with them,” Temple said. “As soon as you drop the hammer, they stop for a few months for sure. So every few months we have to figure out some way.”
The town required Holcim to fill the quarry with non-toxic materials as part of the reclamation process.
According to Weston and Sampson, the company that Holcim hired to acquire fill for the quarry, up to 1,856,904 cubic yards have already been filled. The quarry will require approximately 4,825,000 cubic yards of fill. Fill is accepted from construction projects and is mostly sourced from Boston.
