An open letter to Ben Metcalf

In late April the court ordered a site modification plan to be approved for your “warm mix asphalt plant” in North Canaan. So from one person who “believes strongly in protecting our environment” to another, I ask you, Mr. Metcalf, to act on what you believe. I have to trust you at your website words on this; so please do not build this “$4 million Green Mix” asphalt plant in our town—or any town for that matter. 

Although I do not live as close to your site as the dozens of adjacent and nearby residences nor the Beckley Furnace State Park and Blackberry River that are within a third of a mile of your site or even the Congregational church almost right across the street, I do have a stake here as everyone in town does.

As it clearly states on your website, “Owner Ben Metcalf is a long-time conservationist and a former Land Trust President and Founding Member of The Pomperaug River Watershed Coalition. Ben believes strongly in protecting our environment and would never construct a plant that would have any detrimental effect upon our water resources.” As a stated “protector” of our environment, I think, maybe Ben you certainly would add, “protector” of our air quality and health and safety to this website statement. All of us know that asphalt is not Green. The use of the word Green is not to be associated with “unqualified general environmental benefit claims.”

Maybe you need to review the Federal Trade Commission Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims that help marketers avoid making deceptive claims.

Ben, so much confusion with this case exists. Like warm mix and hot mix. Ask any environmentalist, are either of these “green”? When the Journal of Cleaner Production and ScienceDirect compared environmental impacts the study showed the use of “warm-mix asphalt (WMA) instead of hot-mix asphalt (HMA) yields a reduction of about 33 percent.” Spoiler alert: “Warm-Mix leaves 67 percent of dangerous asphalt fumes (inhalable benzene) and crystalline silica in the air.”

Maybe it was your life’s dream to build a warm mix asphalt plant. I’m sorry about that, but as someone who “believes strongly in protecting our environment” and while we are at just the start of the COVID-19 respiratory virus pandemic and economic crisis, maybe you need to reconsider. Even in the GemPatch safety sheet you presented it warned that there is sufficient evidence for the carcinogenicity of asphalt fumes. It’s not the time for a business venture that may risk our air quality. How about using the site for solar power generation like O&G Southbury Quarry’s 1.3 megawatt solar array! Ben Metcalf Solar Power! Brilliant.

Please Ben, if you are the person who “believes strongly in protecting our environment,” you can do this. Stop the asphalt plant.

Bernard Re, Jr.
North Canaan, CT

The Metcalf Asphalt Debacle: Ineptitude at Town Hall and Judicial Ignorance

The original zoning enforcement officer appears to have done no research into the uses at the Mulville property before encouraging the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) to approve a special permit for cold patch processing. It seemed a business-friendly decision with a seemingly sincere B. Metcalf, who assured the commission and neighbors that cold patch was all he intended to do.

Two years later B, Metcalf showed up at a P&Z meeting with a lawyer and plans for a $4 million warm asphalt plant. The P&Z not only had no lawyer at the meeting but the town attorney was retiring and no new attorney had been hired.

When the P&Z handed back the application at that meeting because they thought that was the correct thing to do, there was no town attorney to advise them to actually vote on the application. Evidently only Metcalf’s attorney knew that you have to make a decision on the application within 65 days. Metcalf had already filed his first of three lawsuits against the town, so everyone thought it was a waiting game. The neighbors tried to become intervenors in the lawsuits twice and were denied twice.

Two years later in April 2020, the udge ruled that after 65 days Metcalf gets an automatic approval because the wording included in the 2016 special permit allowed a heated dryer for the aggregate to make the cold patch and that is the same as a warm asphalt plant. It is not the same, but at the hearing no one explained that to the judge. No one explained that the proposed warm asphalt plant is sited adjacent to residences and one third of a mile from the Blackberry River, which is in itself against state statutes.

“The law is simply human will written down,” writes Richard Powers in “The Overstory.” “The law must let every acre of living earth be turned into tarmac, if such is the desire of people. Soon we”ll know if we were right or wrong.” 

Dolores Perotti
East Canaan, CT

Kudos All Around

Recently First Selectman Matt Riiska, with planning, budgetary restraint and vision, continued his efficient running of our great town. It came in the form of repaving Grant St. where my wife, Susanne, and I live.

For the 37 years we’ve been here, our little road had more potholes, bumps, lumps and crevices than the infamous Road to Hana on Maui.

It was thanks to the outstanding, dedicated work of town rew members Joe Green, Tom Gorsky, Steve Drumm and Superintendent of Works Troy Lamire that our long awaited fix came to fruition.

The installing of new catch basins and the application of necessary riprap on the slope between Route 44 and Grant St., once finished, provided the perfect preparation for the repaving of my street.

Credit for the repaving centerpiece, including new curbing, goes to Marty Kozlak’s Progressive Paving Company. His outstanding crew finished all the work in less that two days.

As it stands, Grant St., named after one Moses Grant, will now provide smooth passage for me, my wife and all of our neighbors—providing that the much appreciated winter plows will be dainty.

John G. Funchion