To the Editor:
We are reaching out to you in the hopes of gaining support in convincing our town boards and commissions to enforce and amend the regulations regarding the complete disregard of any environmental protections at the gravel pit along the Three-Mile River located at 308-1 Mile Creak Road, Old Lyme.
The gravel pit operation is a grandfathered entity located on the bank of the river bog, and surrounded by residential homes. The permit to operate has been simply rubber-stamped without review or regulation for a number of years partly due to limited activity, but that activity escalated in 2020, when the operation expanded to the very edge of the river and it is once again expanding beyond their own scope of operation, which they submitted to the town.
They are presently under a stop work order due to the Town’s Zoning Enforcement Officer witnessing a worker dumping a tri-axel load of material over the bank to the river’s edge. It was the 4th that I witnessed that day—there are absolutely no erosion controls in place whatsoever. They have also lowered the outflow culvert, which has dropped the water level in the entire river bog by 12” to 16”, likely killing off all the invertebrates and amphibians that have been winter-hibernating in that layer.
Additionally, the pit operator intends to begin using a rock crusher, in the middle of residential area, surrounded by homes, several within a few hundred feet of the crusher’s location—all of the herons, geese, and numinous duck species, and migrating birds that use this river as a rookery will disappear. There won’t be a living creature within a mile of that machine, except for the families and children that call this place home.
We are hopeful that the Zoning Board will treat this issue with the same importance as the noise issue from the pickle ball court on McCurdy Road.
This is not the first time this operation has come before zoning enforcement. It has been mentioned at commission meetings that there have been “numerous complaints and infractions connected to this operation from its beginning”, Yet the regulations have not been amended, The damage to the wetlands continues as if it were the Florida swamps in the 1960’s.
The [Old Lyme] Inland Wetlands Commission will be discussing this operation at their 6pm, [Thursday] March 7th meeting to address reparations to the site and the stop work order issued by the town.
The permit renewal is supposed to come before the [Old Lyme] Zoning Commission in May, and we hope to have the input and support of as many affected neighbors, and environmentally-concerned people and groups in time to bring these concerns to the board prior to this renewal.
If you can’t make it to a meeting, please send an Email expressing your support to the attention of..
> Old Lyme Inland Wetlands Commission / Old Lyme Zoning Board at [email protected] or [email protected]
> Old Lyme Selectwoman’s office.at [email protected]
or a letter to the Town of Old Lyme, 52 Lyme Street, Old Lyme, CT 06371 for the attention of the appropriate commission.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Peter and Millie Caron,
Old Lyme.
Editor’s Note: The author submitted the following photos to support the case he makes in the letter above.:
