PAST INITIATIVES

Cashman Dredging and Marine Contracting purchased the former Dow property on Route 12 in Gales Ferry in May 2022. Their introduction to our community was via a July 2022 public meeting, a meeting that was required of them by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) as part of the company's Environmental Justice Plan which it had filed with CT DEEP.  The company proposed to our community their plans to process contaminated dredge spoils on the property.  Contaminated dredge spoils can be converted into a beneficial use material called "processed dredged material" (PDM), which is accomplished by mixing Portland cement (typically) with contaminated dredge spoils. PDM can be used for things such as capping landfills or brownfields, even as support material for golf courses, for example. 

The creation of PDM can be a dusty, noisy, smelly operation. The video shown above was made in 2022 during a site visit to a company whose business it is to create PDM (in fact, Cashman has been one of their customers). As you can see from the video, the entire site was covered with dust.  During our 15-minute visit to the site, dust had already begun accumulating on our car. The operation was relatively noisy up close, and even from one of their gates which was approximately 500 feet away, the heavy equipment was still audible.  And although the odor wasn't pungent, it certainly wasn't clean air that we were smelling during our visit. 

On top of likely dust, noise, and smell, PDM processing is also typically a heavy traffic generator. Contaminated dredge spoils are brought to a processing site by barge, but the vast majority of the PDM is typically shipped out of a processing site by truck. Even a moderately sized PDM operation would add a significant amount of heavy trucks to our small town Gales Ferry roadways.

CALU engaged regularly with CT DEEP and with Cashman during the latter half of 2022. In December 2022, Cashman sent out a public notice that they would be temporarily suspending their plans to bring contaminated dredge spoils to Gales Ferry. We certainly hope that this becomes a permanent decision, but the company is noncommittal as of the time of this writing in September 2023.

More info below ...

In early 2023, Cashman submitted their first Special Permit application to the Town of Ledyard to erect a heavy marine equipment repair & maintenance facility. The image above is an artist rendering showing where Cashman initially proposed locating this building. As you can see, the location would have been right up against the company's northern property line (40 feet away from the nearest residence!), where it would have adversely impacted the abutting residential neighborhood on River Drive. It also would have caused the destruction of roughly a 300-foot preexisting vegetation buffer that had protected that northern neighborhood for many decades.

During the public hearing process (which is required for a Special Permit application such as this), CALU submitted many documents and spoke at every public hearing meeting, urging our Town Planner and our Planning & Zoning Commission to require Cashman to continue revising their application until it complied with our zoning laws. And they listened!

The building was relocated approximately 120 feet farther south and away from the property line, which will allow at least 100 feet of that 300-foot preexisting buffer to be saved. Written into their Special Permit, the company will be required to augment that 100-foot buffer with significant new plantings, much of them evergreens, to provide a required all-season visual buffer from abutting properties. The Company is also required to install noise and dust monitors to take readings 24/7, ensuring that their operations stay within State noise regulations and ensuring that fugitive dust does not leave their property.

There was much give and take during this process, and in the end all parties involved reached an acceptable compromise. 

For more information, to review all meeting minutes, exhibits, and videos of each meeting, you can visit the Ledyard Town website Calendar page: TOWN OF LEDYARD - Calendar (legistar.com) Planning & Zoning public hearings relevant to this particular application were held on April 13th, June 29th, July 13th, and August 10th of 2023.