Citizen's Statement to Freetown Soil Board

I am here tonight because each and every time CCA blasts, my house shakes. Not every once in a while, or some blasts and not others, but every blast, every time. I have been keeping a log to record each blast and its effects on my home and I encourage everyone else here tonight who feels their home shake to do the same.

I can tell you that truck traffic on Bryant Street has significantly increased since the CCA quarry opened in Freetown. Who is enforcing the truck route? It is my understanding that trucks are suppose to use RT 79 and not Bryant St. What about the quarry customers and their trucks? Are they using Rt. 79 or Bryant St.? I have seen trucks going down Bryant St. carrying earth moving equipment. I have been stopped in my car behind large trucks going down Bryant St. that turned into the quarry site.

An Assonet neighbor was out on Bryant St. looking for her cat and was nearly hit by cars trying to pass trucks lined up on Bryant St. entering the quarry site. She had to literally take a nose dive into the woods to keep from being hit. I was stopped in my car at Bryant and Rt. 79 and had to move off the road into the grass to allow enough room for a truck turning on Bryant St. to keep from hitting my car. I checked my rear-view mirror. The truck turned into the quarry site.

CCA has not been watering their driveway. That driveway is dry and dusty. Today, I noticed clouds of dust coming from the wheels of the quarry trucks. A neighbor across the street told me he drove down Bryant St. past the quarry site and the entire end of Bryant Street was covered in a cloud of dust.

CCA has not secured their quarry site. Kids go on the site all the time to race their off-road vehicles. The neighborhood hears the noise from that. If kids are going on the site, what is to stop someone from falling into the quarry pit and being seriously hurt, if not killed?

My neighbors complain that the blasting frightens their animals - horses, cows, sheep, dogs, cats, etc. It also frightens people. Even if you have been called and warned that the blast is coming, when it happens it causes an involuntary startle effect. This releases extra adrenaline in the body and creates a kind of alert nervousness. When residents complained that the blasts startled animals, CCA said, "It's going to." When we said it startled people, CCA said, "It's going to," without any apology, without any plans to lessen the effects. Why are we expected to simply live with this? The constant startle effect causes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in blasting victims. A neighbor in Assonet complains that the blast constantly wakes up her baby. It is causing the child emotional stress which can affect the baby's brain development. It is disturbing the baby's sleep patterns and causing the child to develop sleep problems with both nap time and night time sleeping. The child did not experience these problems before the blasting began.

An Assonet neighbor has had her foundation shift since the blasting started. She is now getting water in her basement that is causing mold. In the 30 years she has lived in the house, she has never had water or mold in her basement until the blasting started.

There are people in Assonet and Berkley with pre-existing health conditions. These people are suffering because of this quarry. There is a man with one lung, a woman with CPOD, a woman with Lupus, several children with asthma. The dust issue poses a serious health threat for these residents, whose breathing capacity and immune systems are already compromised. Why should their health be put at risk?

The bulk of the problems at the moment are being caused by blast vibrations shaking homes. What right does a Freetown business have to shake homes in Berkley? Why should Berkely residents suffer for the sake of a Freetown business? What vibration plan has CCA developed? If they haven't developed one, why not? This Soil Board should be more concerned with protecting the property and safety of both Freetown and Berkley homeowners.

I formally request that CCA hire a company such as Vibra-Tech. This type of company can conduct an Iso-Seismic Survey of the geology surrounding the quarry and map out the way the ground wants to vibrate. Then blasts can be configured in such a way that the delays disrupt the ground's natural rhythm, pushing it at all the wrong times to make it vibrate. If the ground can't vibrate very well, then neither will the houses built on it. The result is that the ground vibrates at a lower amplitude, for a shorter duration with less low-frequency energy to shake neighbors. There are solutions to the problem and CCA and this Soil Board should seek them and use them.

There are currently 4 homes on Bryant St. that are for sale specifically because the homeowners want to get away from living next to the quarry site. These homes have been siting on the market without being able to sell. In a buyer's market, why would anyone pay to live in a home where the house shakes, there is constant loud noise from the quarry site as well as the noise from blasting, heavy truck traffic and dust? Buyers can just as easily pay the same price to buy homes that do not have these problems. This leaves families stuck - not being able to move and leave a bad situation because they can't sell their homes.

This not only traps people in a situation they can't live with and can't get away from, but it lowers property values. Homeowners have already suffered property devaluation because of the current market. Add to that the quarry site nuisances that make the property undesirable in the market and the homes loose even more value. This means that all these homes that are loosing additional value because of the quarry site should have their property taxes lowered accordingly. When the property values on one side of town go down, the town still has to raise the same amount of tax money to fund town expenses. That money has to come from somewhere, so it comes from other homeowners. Homeowners who do not live near the quarry will see their property taxes go up. Why should tax payers in East Freetown pay higher taxes because the Town wants a quarry? It isn't fair or just, but it is what happens to taxpayers. So even homeowners on the opposite side of town who never feel their homes shake, will be negatively impacted by this quarry through rising property taxes.