Battle on concrete plant rages in Cranston
By JESSICA KERRY | July 18, 2007
More than a year after construction began on a concrete-batching plant near Cranston’s Eden Park and Garden City neighborhoods, a victor has yet to emerge in what citizen opponents describe as a David-and-Goliath battle and plant owner Cullion Concrete Corporation calls an emotional overreaction at the expense of legitimate business.
Abutting landowner Frank Mattiucci, president of Cranston Citizens for Responsible Zoning and Development (www.stopcranstonconcrete.org) sees the plant as a dubious deal, with Cranston building officials making what he calls special exceptions to pass a permit for the plant. “All over the area,” he says, “folks are upset that a shady deal like this could have happened in our city.”
Mattiucci says Cullion received a municipal construction permit after 11 business days, allowing it to correct ambiguities on the application and reapply for the appropriate permit from the Department of Environmental Management. (As a rule, errors render an application invalid, and permit applications in Cranston ordinarily take far longer to be processed, according to Mattiucci — from 12 weeks to two years, for modifications as small as screening in a porch).
Conveniently for Cullion, the permit was awarded just in time to beat a ban on construction of new asphalt, cement, and concrete plants, which the Cranston City Council passed three days later.
The plant’s neighbors, some of whom live about 70 feet away, have raised concerns about its potential impact on the surrounding environment, which includes sports fields and the Pawtuxet and Pocasset rivers, and a fairly dense residential area. A primary concern is crystalline silica, the powdery byproduct of concrete-batching, which the US Occupational Safety & Health Administration designates as a lung-damaging carcinogen. When an accident at a concrete plant last year showered silica dust on Charlestown, Massachusetts, more than 60 people were treated for respiratory ailments.
But Cullion lawyer Robert Murray says that data does not support the citizens’ argument. “People get emotional about this,” he says, “but the facts just don’t line up with their story.” While the smokestack at the Charlestown plant was more than 300 feet high, the Cullion tower won’t exceed 35 feet; the risk, he says, just isn’t comparable. “[Cullion has] spent extensive dollars buying the best possible system to mitigate any potential problems,” Murray says. “The horror stories are unfortunate, because it’s just not going to happen.” He also says the permit application was properly submitted to the building inspector.
Murray calls the environmental issues cited by neighbors a “red herring,” noting that the property, zoned for industrial use for a half-century, has been previously occupied by an excavation company at no detriment to the surrounding wetlands.
A week after the DEM issued Cullion the appropriate wetlands permit in April, however, residents of Eden Park and Garden City watched as the site was submerged in five feet of floodwater, which lingered for three days. The property is on a FEMA-designated floodplain, although the DEM has ruled that the plant won’t pose a significant threat to the neighboring rivers.
Both sides have challenged the previous proceedings. These legal hurdles mean the stalemate will continue for quite a while. In the meantime, Cranston Citizens continues to organize, presenting more than 2000 petitions to Mayor Michael Napolitano and urging residents to write the DEM and EPA.
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