July 21, 2023: MassDEP requires more information from SLT on its application for a Recycling, Composting or Conversion (RCC) permit
MassDEP asked SLT Construction to provide more information and a “MEPA applicability determination” to show that the proposed asphalt, brick and concrete recycling facility was covered by SLT’s July 11, 2018 MEPA environmental review. MassDEP requested that SLT provide a response by August 12, 2023.
Read the Mass DEP July 21, 2023 letter here:
Background:
This 43-acre mining site was owned by the Mass. Department of Transportation until 2018 when it sold the land to SLT Construction. This transfer of publicly owned land to a private entity triggered the legal requirement for an environmental review under the state “Massachusetts Environmental Protection Act” a law that is supposed to protect the environment. The state did not require a full environmental review, only “MEPA Lite” an environmental notification form. Then state MEPA office rubber stamped SLT’s form and said this project would alter only “9.5 acres” and take 620,000 cubic yards of earth from Carver and 180,000 cubic yards from Plympton. The project was described as self-storage warehouses on land that Carver rezoned in 2015 for the “Spring Street Innovation District.”
The MEPA Certificate is below, issued on August 10, 2018 for the project. It says nothing about an over 6 year stand alone sand and gravel mining operation or the “RCC” asphalt, brick and concrete processing facility. MassDEP is asking SLT to address this.
In mid-2023, SLT applied to the state MassDEP for a permit to “recycle” asphalt, brick and concrete on the site. At least 40 people wrote to MassDEP asking the agency to deny this permit application. The official permit is a “SW 46 Permit for Recycling, Composting, and Conversion (RCC)”.
The project also needs an earth removal permit from the Town of Plympton. In 2023, the Town of Plympton Selectboard told SLT it needed more information about hydrology and impact to drinking water wells before the Board could consider an earth removal permit. SLT has not pursued the Plympton permit.
Town of Plympton’s Cease and Desist Order
In September 2022, the Town of Plympton issued a cease and desist to SLT to stop all earth removal at the site because SLT does not have a permit from Kingston. It has since been lifted. Here is the cease and desist order:
These satellite images show SLT mining in Plympton without a permit in October 2021.
Here is SLT’s response to Plympton’s Cease and Desist order.
Find out more about SLT’s illegal operations here and efforts by grassroots activists to pull back the curtain on the illegal mining operations in Southeastern Massachusetts and the Carver Earth Removal Committee covering up for SLT and others.