Calais contractor fined for emissions violations

CALAIS – A Calais contractor will pay a $2,500 fine for violating state air emission regulations at the company’s asphalt mixing operation in Beddington, according to an out-of-court settlement with the Maine Board of Environmental Protection.

The BEP is expected to approve the settlement agreement with Thomas DiCenzo Inc. today in Augusta.

This is the fifth time in two years that DiCenzo has been fined in connection with road construction projects in Washington County.

The most recent violations were discovered on June 21, 2000, when a staff person from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection inspected the company’s asphalt batch plant and gravel crushing and screening operation in Beddington.

Emissions from both the rock crusher and the asphalt batch plant exceeded the company’s DEP license and the company had replaced a wet scrubber on the batch plant with a bag house filter without amending its license to reflect the change, according to the agreement.

Kurt Tidd of the DEP’s Bureau of Air Quality Control said the $2,500 civil penalty reflects the fact that the company had a previous violation for air emission in April 2000.

At that time, DiCenzo paid a $1,500 fine as the result of an Aug. 6, 1999 inspection that determined that the company was not using spray nozzles on the rock crushers. As a result, the particulate matter in the air exceeded the license limits, according to the settlement agreement.

In June 1999, the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission fined DiCenzo $1,500 for installing a culvert on an unnamed stream in Township 30 without erosion control devices on exposed road banks within 75 feet of the stream. As a result, silt and sediment washed into the stream after a night of heavy rain.

In a September 1998 out-of-court settlement with LURC, DiCenzo paid a $2,000 fine for mixing asphalt without a permit in Township 21.

That settlement agreement followed a May 1998 out-of-court settlement with LURC when the company paid a $1,500 fine for mixing asphalt without a permit in Township 22.