The story so far
By Christina Holden Shea
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| One of Copar's dust piles |
Westerly Granite, owner of the quarry site, checked off
"existing" when asked on the permit if the business at the quarry was
ongoing. It was not. Many of us who live near the Old Sullivan
quarry can testify to that.
Since Copar came to town, we are subjected to constant noise
from excavation and rock crushing, silica dust on our homes, trucks full of
gravel, sometimes uncovered, barreling through the neighborhood all day and
explosions from Maine Blasting and Drilling damaging our homes whenever Copar
needs to free up more rock for crushing.
As residents of Bradford and nearby Charlestown, we formed Concerned
Citizens of Bradford-Charlestown to raise community awareness and
to challenge the assumption that Copar is a good business that is good for the
local economy.
In fact, nearly all of the employees of Copar Quarry are
from Connecticut. All of their trucks are registered in Connecticut. They park
them in Bradford every night. The owners are all from Connecticut and that’s
where the profits go, all except for the lease payments Copar makes to the
politically well-connected Comolli family.
Now Copar has taken over the Morrone Quarry in
Charlestown without even bothering to get a business license with Charlestown
until three months after starting its operations. To add to our fears,
another abandoned quarry, this time on Klondike Road and owned by South County
Sand and Gravel, is being leased out. We don’t have confirmation about who the
new operators are, but it sure looks like our neighborhood is being surrounded.
Three neighboring families (Dubois, Pucci and Balbat) started
the fight by suing Copar and the town and they are now in mediation with the
quarry. Judge Brian Stern is presiding over this case. Attorney Michael Lynch
is representing the three families. Things didn’t go very well for Copar at
first and, at one point, the judge
actually threatened to jail some of the owners for contempt. He placed them
under court supervision.
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| From Copar's website - this is what we listen to, all day, day after day |
When the Westerly Sun revealed this, our neighbors with the
on-going lawsuit went to Judge Stern to complain that Comolli had compromised
Gwaltney. The judge
agreed and ordered Gwaltney removed as Copar’s court-appointed monitor.
George Comolli is a prominent lawyer in the town of Westerly
and also holds the position of counsel for the Westerly Housing Authority. He’s
a man who wears many hats and sometimes it seems like those hats have him
confused. Is he representing his family’s interests in Copar? Is he
representing the town’s interests as solicitor to the WHA? Is he representing
the interests of some other one of his many business clients?
For example, as Housing Authority lawyer, he offered the job
of Executive Director to Robert Ritacco. Ritacco has been chairing the Westerly
Zoning Board while it has been trying to figure out what to do with the
cease-and-desist order Westerly’s Zoning Officer issued against Copar.
If the Zoning Board upholds the two cease-and-desist orders
the Town of Westerly has issued, Copar is shut down. If Copar is shut down,
Comolli’s family loses money. But if Bob Ritacco does not allow the Zoning
Board to actually hear Copar’s appeal and delays action for months, as has been
the case, Copar stays open while on appeal and the money keeps flowing.
Again, thanks to great
reporting by Dale Faulkner at the Westerly Sun, the story came out about
Comolli offering Ritacco the job…and Ritacco almost accepting. Once the story
came out, Ritacco went into full damage control and Comolli would have no
comment. Ritacco’s
promised job as head of the Westerly Housing Authority went away.
But there still has not been a Zoning Board hearing on
Copar’s appeal of the cease-and-desist orders, Copar stays open, and the money
keeps flowing.
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| Bob Craven - brought in by Westerly after Liz Burdick was removed from the Copar case |
Once more, Sun reporter Dale Faulkner dug
out the story that Burdick had been offered a job by Copar to work for them
at one of their Connecticut trash facilities (that’s one of their main
businesses in Connecticut) while she was
Zoning Officer and on the Copar case!
She left the job at the end of February, claiming that she
had been subjected to a hostile work environment and singled out Bob Ritacco as
one of the bad guys. She started working for Copar almost immediately after
leaving her Westerly job.
You never know when you’ll need a friend. Mark Russo, the
lawyer who served as Westerly Hospital’s special master, was treated by George
Comolli to a load of free gravel. Comolli allowed Russo to take a backhoe and
load up a truck with stone for his own personal use. This too made it into the
Westerly Sun and even rated another scathing editorial.
Meanwhile, back in Superior Court, Judge
Stern finally ruled on the case brought by the litigating families. While
he ruled that Copar was indeed causing a personal nuisance to the families with
its dust and noise, he allowed Copar to continue its operations, subject to
good behavior, monitored by the court.
After monitor Ronald Gwaltney was removed for lacking the
common sense to turn down George Comolli’s offer of a golfing trip to South
Carolina, no one has been named to replace him. Instead, on May 16, court-appointed
special master John Deacon made a “surprise” inspection, but not without first
calling Ron Gwaltney. Deacon took a quick look around and felt everything was
running fine. He reported back to the judge that Copar was behaving itself.
Here’s what I know about Deacon’s “surprise” May 16 inspection
of the quarry. Of course it wasn’t really much of a surprise since he called
Ron Gwaltney first.
The quarry is supposed to spray water on their rock crushers
while in use to cut down airborne sand and silica particles flying through the
neighborhood. That day, the water truck had broken down. Water was
not being used. Deacon claimed he didn’t see the dust as leaving the plant, but
he reported that he had grit in his teeth.
Bob Craven, the attorney hired by the town after Liz Burdick
was removed from the case, told me about his
own surprise inspection. Craven said
Copar owner Sam Cocopard cursed and threatened him.
Cocopard’s behavior toward Bob Craven is ironic, given that Copar
filed a $10,000,000 lawsuit against the town of Westerly claiming that the
town was picking on them. Copar claims it is the victim of a conspiracy and
that its Constitutional rights have been violated.
If I wasn’t so worn out by the way Copar has ruined my
family’s life, and the lives of my friends and neighbors with its daily noise,
dust, truck traffic and from time to time, blasts that sound like a war has
started, I would have to laugh at the idea that Copar is the victim here.
As tired as we all are, and as frustrated as we are with the
legal system and our good ole boy style of politics in Westerly, we’re not
giving up. Concerned Citizens of Bradford-Charlestown is really just getting
started to fight back; they have left us no other option. And Copar is going to
find out that we’re harder to crush than granite.
Now that Copar has expanded its operations into Charlestown,
there are even more people who are directly affected. If Copar takes on yet
another operation, the one on Klondike Road, they may think they’ll make more
money, but they’re really just increasing the number of people who will stand
up to fight them.
If you want to help, and especially if you want to fight
back, click
here to contact us.
Tina lives in Charlestown and is on the Steering Committee for Concerned Citizens of Bradford-Charlestown
Tina lives in Charlestown and is on the Steering Committee for Concerned Citizens of Bradford-Charlestown