Julians are back with a new gambit and engineer

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2024 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Seven days after Chester Zoning Administrator Preston Bristow sent a Notice of Violation to the Julian companies,which operates quarries in Gassetts, he received an answer. The notice had given the Julians the choice of correcting five violations or appealing the notice to Chester’s DRB. The Julians chose a third way —  a “response.”

The two-page response came from Jason Waysville, a Springfield civil engineer who spelled out the measures the Julian “team” is working on “in an expedited manner.”

Waysville notes that he is new to the project and “trying to get up to speed to resolve the issues…” Up to this point, this has been in the hands of Jeremy Matosky of Trudell Consulting Engineers.

A phone call to Matosky on Tuesday morning to see if TCE is still working for the Julians was not returned by publication time. The Telegraph checked to see if the Julians’ attorney — Mark Hall of Paul, Frank + Collins of Burlington — was still on the case. Hall confirmed that he continues to work for the Julians and they are working on a new permit application.

The gist of Waysville’s response is that Julian Materials will be submitting a new permit application for the Chandler Road Quarry, which he writes is “just the location that is in question.” However, Violation #1 says the company expanded and changed the use of all three quarries, but Waysville does not answer this except to say its being worked on and expedited.

Waysville also says that the noise complaint at Chandler (Violation #2) will be addressed, but he does not specify the remedy, and that Julian Materials also is looking for a new site for the operation to eliminate the violation.

Violations #3 and #5 address water issues, namely surface water pollution and placing a building in a Special Flood Hazard Area without a permit. Waysville’s answers to both #3 and #5 refer to an application to the state for a Multi Sector General Permit that deals with monitoring and controlling pollution. But the state had not granted the permit as of the DRB’s recent conditional use hearings and there have been questions about whether the quarries would fall under that permit. Waysville also said he would contact the floodplain coordinator to obtain a permit or an administrative decision on #5 and report back.

Waysville’s response to Violation #4 says the Julian company will explain, when it submits a new permit application, how it will remedy the fact that the company got a permit for a storage building, but instead used it for manufacturing without the necessary permit.  As for the unpermitted manufactured house at the South quarry, Waysville writes that it was put there to replace an old mobile home and that not getting a permit was unintentional. Waysville says the Julian company will also apply for a permit for that as well.

According to Bristow, the entire response is meaningless in the context of the official notice of violation,  which demands compliance by stopping the violations or filing an appeal.  The notice of violation also spells out that if the appeal is not filed within 15 days after the town issues the notice, the Julian company is – in effect – confirming its violations. The penalty is $200 per day per violation or $1,000 for all five per day. At that point, the town could ask a court for an injunction to shut down the work at the quarries.

Waysville’s response comes just two days after Superior Court Judge Tracey Lee Dayton in Fairfield, Conn., extended the date for sentencing Jason Julian until Feb. 9. Julian had asked for the delay in getting his 18-month, $2.5 million sentence because he was not able to raise the initial $1.5 million fine payment according to a report in CTPost. That raised the question of whether the Julians could follow through with any of the actions in their response or afford the fines as they mount up.

The charges, brought by the State of Connecticut, say that Julian illegally disposed of fill containing hazardous materials including PCBs, heavy metals and other carcinogens in public areas of the town of Fairfield including parks and Penfield Beach.