Group fights Dolomite on silos
Claims Ballston Spa asphalt plant is in violation of agreement
An attorney for Citizens for a Clean Environment has sent a letter to the Town Board demanding that Dolomite, owners of the hot asphalt plant at Curtis Industrial Park, return to the Planning Board for approval of its silos.
In her March 27 letter, Claudia
Braymer told the Town Board that Dolomite’s silos are greater than the allowable 40-feet height.
“Those silos are much more visible than the project elements that the Planning Board reviewed and approved,” she wrote.
Initially, Dolomite sought a zoning variance to erect 70-foot silos, but Dolomite dropped the plan, she said, because it was the “primary focus of the public comments,” adding that ultimately the Planning Board did not allow them.
“The 70-foot silos, plus the industrial plumes from the asphalt plant, have a negative visual impact on the community,” Braymer wrote. “There was no approval or environmental review by the Planning Board.”
Neither Dolomite’s attorney,
Adam Schultz from Couch White LLP, nor town Supervisor Tim Szczepaniak returned Times Union phone calls for comment. Planning Board Chairman John Van Vorst, however, said Dolomite’s actions are now out of the Planning Board’s reach.
“The Planning Board work is done,” Van Vorst wrote in an email. “The legitimate compliance concerns are the purview of the Town Board.”
Braymer will address the Town Board at its Tuesday night meeting. In addition to the silos, she will bring up the other Planning Board conditions placed on the company that the town needs to enforce. According to Braymer, since the plant opened in October 2018, the following stipulations have not been met:
■ The plant getting permission in advance from the town to operate, under limited circumstances, on the weekend;
■ Improvements on Route 67, including a turning lane into the industrial park;
■ A secondary road for emergency access;
■ Zim Smith Trail improvements, including signs to ensure the safety of trail users who pass by the plant;
■ A production records report, filed with the town quarterly so that the town can monitor its operations; A noise impact study; A vegetation buffer that would mitigate air quality and dust impacts;
■ Approval from Saratoga County Sewer District.
“Deviation from the Planning Board’s conditions means that the community is negatively impacted,” Braymer wrote. “The Town Board must uphold its responsibility to the community and stop Dolomite from operating without all of the conditions being satisfied.”
Braymer also noted that Dolomite dropped its $4 million suit against the town in June 2018. The suit alleged the town and Town Board member William Goslin willfully deterred the company’s progress in Ballston.
As part of the agreement, Braymer said, some stipulations to the Dolomite mitigation plan, like the changes to Route 67, were modified. Regardless, she also said it is the Town Board’s duty to force Dolomite to comply.
“The restrictions and conditions in the Planning Board’s approval were meant to protect the community from the adverse impacts of the asphalt plant,” she wrote. “The town’s failure to enforce those conditions and failure to enjoin the asphalt plant from operating in violation of the approval, is contributing to the damages experienced by the town’s taxpayers and residents.”