A Jaffrey resident is seeking to continue his topsoil screening business on Hadley Road, which he said has been ongoing for decades, while a neighbor alleges it’s grown significantly in scope and is disturbing his peace.
The business, owned by Ed and Carmen Van Blarcom, and operated on their property on 113 Hadley Road, was the subject of a cease-and-desist letter earlier this year after a complaint from a neighbor about increased noise and activity. Last month, the Van Blarcoms appealed the cease-and-desist, arguing that screening loam was an agricultural pursuit allowed in the rural district.
The Zoning Board disagreed on that point and upheld the cease-and-desist but allowed Ed Van Blarcom to continue the screening business while he applied for a variance. The board held its first hearing on the variance request on Tuesday.
Jason Reimers, an attorney representing Van Blarcom, explained to the board that the topsoil screening business has been in operation since 2002. It started using soil from the Hadley Road property, then from a second property owned by the Van Blarcoms, and since 2025, has been buying unscreened soil from a trucking company in New Ipswich.
Reimers said there has always been one screener in operation at any one time. He said the unscreened soil is brought onto the property by Ed Van Blarcom, and that the majority is also trucked off the property by him, with about 20 percent being removed by customers. He said the soil is sold for use in gardens, on farms and by landscapers.
Reimers said that Ed Van Blarcom had met with the neighbor, Charles Moore, who had submitted complaints about the business, to discuss potential conditions that would be agreeable to him. Those conditions included running the screener not more than four days a week, Monday through Thursday, between the hours of 9 a.m. and noon, and only during the months of April through October.
“Those are all indications we would welcome as conditions,” Reimers said.
Reimers said Ed Van Blarcom had also moved the screener to be farther away from the river and wetlands on the property, though he clarified that at no point had the screener been within the buffer for the wetlands or the river.
Reimers said the property, though in the rural district, abuts the industrial district and is in the Downtown Tax Increment Finance district, which has commercial and industrial uses. He said the screening business, if not considered an agricultural use, is not more disruptive than allowed agricultural uses.
“Taking away the use would be more of a change to the neighborhood than allowing it to continue,” Reimers said.
Reimers said that surrounding properties have not dropped in value since the beginning of the business, and have, in fact, as much as doubled or tripled in value since the early 2000s.
Ed Van Blarcom spoke about the business as his livelihood.
“I need this business to help pay my taxes and support myself,” Van Blarcom said. “I have a significant amount of customers I can take care of.”
Moore spoke of his concerns about the river, alleging that removal of topsoil had allowed sediment to run into the water. He also expressed concern about the removal of water from the river and the removal of trees next to the river. He alleged that the amount of activity had increased, as had the nuisances that he’s had to deal with, in the last two years or so. He said characterizing the business as having been there for 23 years was a “distortion of the truth.”
“You’ve heard them say it over and over and over, and I don’t think saying it over and over and over makes it true,” Moore said. He said the old screener that Van Blarcom used was smaller, and “if he was using it, I never heard it.”
In the last two years, he said, he’s dealt with sand plumes through his yard, loud bangs from the lowering of tailgates and the smell of diesel fuel.
“It was quiet, it was a peaceful little spot, and now it’s being interrupted, and it’s been going on for the last three years, not the last 23 years,” Moore said.
Reimers said that the issues Moore raised with the river were irrelevant to the screening business, and were in some cases mischaracterized. He said the removal of water from the river was a practice that Van Blarcom had already stopped. Reimers showed invoices for the purchase of Van Blarcom’s original screener 23 years ago, and Van Blarcom noted he had customers that stretched back well beyond three years.
“Mr. Moore seems to know more about what’s going on my property than I do,” said Van Blarcom.
Amy Reisert, the fiancee of Van Blarcom’s son, said that she’s known the family for 21 years, and that he’s always run a screener and trucked loam out of the property during that time.
“I think it comes down to noise. And I think Ed and his attorney has addressed that with Mr. Moore,” she said. Reisert said she is a real estate agent with more than 20 years of experience, and said that Moore’s property value had not diminished from when he purchased the property. “He has been well aware of what was there the day he bought his property,” she said.
Lee Sawyer commented that the loam screening was a valuable business for agricultural uses.
“There is some feeling this is not agricultural, but every shovelful of that dirt goes somewhere to grow something,” Sawyer said. “Growing things is agricultural.”
After concluding public comment, the board determined that they wanted to conduct a site walk prior to starting deliberations. The board continued the hearing until Thursday at 2 p.m., at 113 Hadley Road in Jaffrey for a site visit, after which the board will return to the Town Hall for deliberations.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.