A Lowell-based sand and gravel company wants to build a sand extraction site in Greenfield, but after consulting with the town’s planning board, the project’s future is uncertain.
Both residents and local officials appeared skeptical of the plans from S&R Corporation, which include extracting 750,000 cubic feet of sand — the equivalent of about 37,500 semi-trailer loads — on a 75-acre plot near Old Bennington Road and Muzzey Hill Road over the span of 10 years.
George Pararas-Caryannis, whose land shares a 2,000-foot border with the lot that would contain the sand pit, said at the meeting last week that Muzzey Hill neighbors intend to “vigorously oppose” the project.
“This will negatively impact our property,” he said. “There will be degradation of the land; there will be dust, traffic and noise. Wildlife will be displaced, and there will be a serious environmental impact.”
Planning Board member Bruce Jones shared his concerns and urged S&R Corporation to relocate. The lot, as planned, is in a rural district.
“This type of operation is meant for the industrial zone. We are not zoned for this in the residential zone, and I think you should probably find another place to do this,” Jones said. “This would mean traffic, dust and fumes.”
Representatives from S&R Corporation pitched the project as a “purely conceptual” tax boon for the town and said only a few trucks would be onsite. If they move forward, the next step would be to apply for a variance from the Greenfield Zoning Board.
The proposed site of the sand extraction operation is on a 75-acre parcel between Old Bennington Road and Muzzey Hill Road, which are both town-maintained gravel roads in the northwest part of town. The lot, owned by Steven Rosswaag of Peterborough, is in the town’s rural district.
Representatives from the company, including owners Steven and Roger Ploof and Greenfield resident Marcus Dube, an employee of S&R Corporation, outlined the project scope to the Planning Board on Sept. 14.
Dube said they’d look to extract a projected 750,000 cubic feet of sand over a decade, and that after extraction, the land could be restored and converted into a “residential housing development.”
The company did not provide specifics on what that might entail, but future developments would need to go through local land use boards.
To proceed, Roger said, his company would need an alteration-of-terrain permit for sand extraction from the state Department of Environmental Services. That permit would dictate a plan for how the land will be restored afterward.
Roger said the potential total value of the sand removed from the site is estimated at about $9 million over 10 years. It would bring much-needed business tax revenue to the town, Dube added, which has higher taxes than some surrounding towns partly due to a large amount of tax-exempt land.
“We all need help with our taxes,” Dube said.
Planning Board Chair Jim Fletcher said he couldn’t speculate on how much revenue the town would receive if the sand pit came to pass.
He cited Greenfield’s Master Plan, which prioritizes “maintaining the rural and historic character of the town and preserving natural resources,” and said allowing a sand pit in the residential zone would most likely be contrary to the goals of the master plan.
Dube said the sand pit itself would comprise only about three or four acres of the total 75-acre lot, and that “very few trees” would be removed. The lot is currently about 80% logged.
“The current owner cleared the land. That has nothing to do with us,” Dube said.
Currently, five or six houses line Old Bennington Road where the logging is taking place, and the proposed operation could impact the views from three or four homes on Muzzey Hill Road.
Dube said the operation would not involve any blasting and that the only equipment on site would be three semi-trailer trucks and a screening truck, with each truck taking three or four loads of sand off the site per day, or a total of about 12 semi-trailer trips per day running along Old Bennington Road. It would run five days a week from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., weather permitting.
“The truck traffic would honestly not be a lot more than what is happening now with the logging trucks,” Dube said.
Dube said the trucks would travel about a mile and a half east from the site to the end of Old Bennington Road, turn south on Greenfield Road, and follow Sawmill Road to Route 31 South to get to Milford.
Fletcher said the turn from Old Bennington Road to Greenfield Road in the center of Bennington “could be a difficult corner for a semi-trailer,” and recommended S&R Corporation “have a conversation with Bennington” about the impacts of truck traffic on the village.
The company is also eyeing eventually transporting the sand to Milford by rail, using the tracks that run adjacent to the lot, which would eliminate truck traffic.
Currently, the train tracks running from Milford to Greenfield are functional only up to Greenfield State Park, about three miles southwest of the potential sand pit.
“We are working with Peter Leishman, who owns the tracks, and we are hoping to be able to remove the material by rail, which would be less expensive and less of an impact,” Dube said.
Dube and the Ploof brothers acknowledged that the train tracks, which originally went as far as Monadnock Paper Mill, would need significant repairs between the state park and Old Bennington Road to become functional again.
Though the plans are hypothetical at this point, about a dozen residents from the area spoke in opposition to the sand pit.
Sympathetic to the company’s desire to grow their business as they were, residents said their neighborhood wasn’t the right place for it, citing concerns about truck traffic and obstructed views.
Abutter Angelique Moon said she was concerned about how semi-trailer traffic would affect the east end of Old Bennington Road, which is unpaved. The road is typically posted, meaning it’s subject to muddy conditions and closed to heavy trucks, in the spring, she said.
“I have real concerns about how you would get the sand from A to B,” Moon said.
Karen Day, who lives on Old Bennington Road, recalled a previous sand removal pit in the vicinity and said the neighborhood had “gone through an awful summer” with it.
“There were trucks all day, there was back-up beeping all day, there was dust and noise,” she said.
Day also said Old Bennington Road is heavily used for recreation, and that truck traffic would impact safety on the road.
“There are children on bikes, there are people with baby strollers, there are runners,” she said.