By Chris Keegan
The Sun Staff
CHARLESTOWN – A local gravel company and its principal owners will return to court next month, amid charges that they illegally dumped construction debris from five vacant homes onto property off Narrow Lane.
In December, state environmental investigators identified 533 cubic yards of solid waste dumped illegally at 60A Narrow Lane from property off Carolina Back Road, which Shoreline Gravel Company President John F. Smith and his wife Evelyn have been trying to develop into a 24-lot residential subdivision called Carolina Farms.
Company officials were subsequently charged with operating an unlicensed storage waste facility and disposing more than 3 cubic yards of waste at an unlicensed facility.
Smith, 62, of 50 Pietila Drive, and his son Jonathan L. Smith, 27, of 60 Narrow Lane, both pleaded not guilty to the charges during a Superior Court arraignment on Oct. 16, and were released on $10,000 personal recognizance. A pre-trial conference in the case is scheduled for Dec. 6.
Shoreline’s attorney William J. Murphy (who is speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives) and Jonathan Smith’s attorney Robert Rahill (who was recently nominated by Town Councilor James M. Mageau to serve on the town’s Planning Commission) did not return telephone messages seeking comment last week.
Under state law, operating an unlicensed waste facility is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $25,000, while disposing waste at an unlicensed facility carries penalties of up to five years in prison and a fine of $5,000 for each day that the violation is repeated or continued. In addition to Shoreline Gravel Co., John Smith is currently the president of three other local companies involved in real estate and land development: Dartmouth Homes Inc. and J.F. Smith Builders Inc. and Beechwood Enterprises Inc.
In August, Charlestown’s Zoning Board voted to uphold a June 2007 decision by the town’s Planning Commission to reject Beechwood’s land development plan for the Carolina Farms property, on grounds that the proposal was not substantially different from those submitted in the late 1990s.
It is unclear at press time whether the project will be amended and resubmitted to the town’s Planning Department.
ckeegan@thewesterlysun.com