ACTON – Jerry D’Addeo got a rude awakening when a state highway crew tore up the newly laid landscaping timbers at his Fox Ridge Road home because they were too close to the highway.

“They had no right to do this,” said D’Addeo, a 72-year-old retiree. “But my lawyer tells me there’s nothing I can do. After all, they’re the government.”

D’Addeo ran afoul of Maine’s little-known highway encroachment law that affects thousands of people who live along state highways in Maine.

By barring construction of fences, signs or other objects within 33 feet of the centerline, the law seeks to ensure that snowplows can maneuver along the road.

“Our intent is protecting the safety and the plow operators who maintain the highway,” said Glen Willette, highway district manager for Maine’s Department of Transportation.

D’Addeo said he consulted with state officials about rules governing highway setbacks after he decided last summer to landscape the front yard of his home.

“They told me that the stonewall I wanted to build could be no closer than 33 feet from the centerline of the road,” he said. “I’d planned it to be 21 feet, so I moved it back and covered the slope between the road and my yard with crushed rock and railroad ties.”

D’Addeo said the state told him his railroad ties would be fine, but the state tells a different story.

After a highway crew supervisor spotted the landscaping, Willette told D’Addeo that his timbers violated the 33-foot rule.

“If a snowplow wing hit one of those timbers, and gets thrown into a car and someone gets killed, we’re liable,” Willette explained.

When D’Addeo refused to remove the railroad ties, he received a mailed notice telling him that faced a Nov. 24 deadline. It said that if he didn’t remove the landscaping, the state would.

On Nov. 28, highway crews, accompanied by a deputy sheriff, showed up at D’Addeo’s house with a backhoe, removed the four railroad ties and regraded the shoulder.

Roger Gobeil, a state highway division engineer, said that in his 30 years with the state he can recall only about a half-dozen times when state crews were forced to remove signs or fences that property owners refused to remove themselves.

In many cases, he said, property owners simply aren’t aware of the law, but once informed they understand the need to comply.

“We hate to tell people they can’t fix up their property,” Willette said. “I tried to be a gentleman about this by talking to Mr. D’Addeo before he did the work.”