Julians appeal Chester’s notice of violation

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2024 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Friday brought the latest twist in the ongoing saga of the Julian quarries in Gassetts as Julian attorney Mark Hall submitted an appeal to the Town of Chester’s notice of violation in which he said the entire operation would be shut down for 2 to 3 weeks for “internal reasons.”

Hall also wrote that all extraction in the North quarry was halted before the notice was issued. Hall then addressed each of the five alleged violations requesting dismissal of two and “forbearance” for the other three.  In legal terms, a forbearance is a delay in enforcement for a specific amount of time.

The notice of violation, which was issued on Jan. 25, cites five violations, each of which has a $200 per day fine after a five-day period to correct them. The appeal, which must be filed within 15 days, will be heard by the town’s Development Review Board. The DRB has already considered Julian quarries’ conditional use permit application as well as an amendment to that application. Those were withdrawn on Jan. 17.  The quarries, which are owned by Jason and Andrew Julian of Connecticut, returned on Feb. 7 with a “response” to the notice from a new engineer, which promised a new application to cure violations.

Hall’s appeal says that the noise from the North and South quarries meets the town’s standards and that surface water pollution at the Chandler quarry has been mitigated so these two violations are moot and should be dismissed.

As for the “change of use” violation involving a building that was given a town permit for storage, then used for processing stone, Hall says that such activities are traditionally part of quarrying thus not an expansion or change.

The construction of a modular home without a permit is explained by Hall as a replacement of a mobile home of “very similar size and impact” and doesn’t warrant a violation.

On the fifth violation, Hall says the quarry’s “apparent accidental expansion into the Special Flood Hazard Area is something they are “trying to mitigate,” but the Agency of Natural Resources has not approved its Multi-Sector General Permit, which deals with monitoring and controlling pollution.

While Hall refers throughout the appeal to “Chandler” as the party replying or requesting, the notice of violation was issued to Julian Materials and Allstone.  Hall also notes that the 2 to 3 week hiatus from quarrying should give Julian/Allstone time to submit new permit applications.

No date has been set for the DRB to hear the Julians’ appeal.