In ye olden days, quarries were used as garbage dumps after they were finished quarrying. My old hometown had at least two, one is now a park, and the other had a neighborhood built over it in the 50s. As far as I know, neither site ever was determined to be toxic at least.
A bit of googling tells me that there has been an ongoing reclamation project at the Great Hill Gravel Pit, and that there has been some “inert” material placed in it. Some of that material apparently contained asbestos. There have also been recurring problems with erosion and siltation, which resulted in some regulatory wrist-slaps a few years ago. None of this suggests a significant groundwater contamination problem.
I agree with Quercus that the US Attorney’s involvement suggests it’s not primarily an environmental concern, but might have secondary implications. Perhaps something like falsified disposal manifests for stuff that someone went down and threw in there.
If it was primarily an environmental investigation by a federal agency, it should show up on the EPA Enviromapper, but it does not.
As others have said, water testing won’t help much unless you know what to test for.
Personally, if I was buying a house next to a quarry, I would also look into how noisy their operations were, and whether dust and/or erosion is a concern.
I would suggest that rather than buying the property for cash, you obtain the biggest mortgage you possibly can. If things turn sour later, you will have a wider range of options with your cash in your pocket.
I would FOIA the site surveys and environmental impact statements and environmental surveys from the company that built the subdivision. Go down ot he town hall and pull out their permitting file - see what there is to find. Also check out the houses themselves - is there any obvious difference in density or yard size on the side closest to the pit?
Does the subD have city water? If so, worthwhile to find out what it would cost to run a pipe to your potential home.
A concern I haven’t seen mentioned is that is the site becomes a clean-up site, you may get limitations or oversight on your septic field.
Check out the local tress. Are the ones near the pit brown around the edges? Is there a lot of tree fall near the pit as compared to higher ground?
Maine is not a nonrecourse state, so that might not help.
**Quercus, **that’s very helpful. I’ll make some calls today. According to the info I have currently, the town is trying to get the congress person involved to get more information, so I’ll also maybe try to contact her office and encourage that, see if it’s gone anywhere. I also agree that we need to know more about the quarry operations. The guy at the town hall said it was “supposed” to have closed completely in October, but did not, so I’m thinking it’s nearing the end of it’s life. We’ve been out there a few times on week days and not a peep from up the hill.
Turble, the property is not going to qualify for a mortgage, too ramshackle.
**Saint Cad, **apparently with these bank owned properties, they don’t accept conditional offers, and we don’t know what to test for anyway. If we can find out, we’ll test for that and see what we have before we make an offer.
**TruCelt, ** No city water anywhere nearby. The subdivision is all houses on multi-acre lots, so I’m not sure looking at that is going to tell us much. Tramping through the woods on the property we are looking at shows no signs of trouble, but it’s still basically winter here.
I think Turbles point was to do with having cash on hand to resolve/mitigate any problems that crop up. It’s easier/cheaper to get a loan to buy the house than to get one later for brownfield reclamation or water pipe installation.
ETA: Ninja’d - meant to respond to Za
BTW, I could not read the letter in your link. Some way to enlarge it that I couldn’t figure out.
Have you followed any of the suggestions made here? Any news?
Seems maybe the Feds got some kind of tip on something and it’s a big enough deal to investigate but that’s all we know. Right?
Perhaps call some serious press. As a former reporter I would jump on this story. I’m talking a major paper with investigative journalists.
Re: County water. My brother-in-law, who happened to be a plumber, ran his own line off a county line for an easy mile. He had a water bill and made deals with neighbors to hook them up too.
Maybe you could just move the house?
In poker, when you find yourself with a marginal hand that you want to play but could end up wishing you didn’t, you start looking for reasons to fold before you sink too much money in the hand. You have found a reason to fold.
If you’re worried, other buyers could be similarly worried, and the property may not go anywhere anytime soon. One possible course for you is to get your offer together, and be ready to move quickly if the situation clears up.
That doesn’t guard you against a clueless buyer who buys it anyway, and gets lucky, of course. Either way, you’re taking a chance.
And another thing. I happen to live on a former MPG industry site. They’ve been “testing” for ten years now. (Towns have been shut down for this.)
FWIW.
This is our current plan of action. We’ve done major renovations like this before; “ramshackle” is a plus for us. The realtor representing this property didn’t know about the investigation, and I agree that this probably isn’t going anywhere soon. We’re going to investigate further and keep an eye on the situation, see what develops. I do love this property, but it would definitely be a big risk with what we know now. We won’t be in this area for more than the next 5 years or so at the most, so I’m not ready to deal with this for a decade+. The info in this thread has been very helpful and I really appreciate it. I’ll keep you guys posted.
Nice location! But besides the potential contamination, another potential pitfall would be the expansion of the quarry. What happens when the permit for gravel mining expires, do they re up for another 25 years and expand it?
Good luck what ever you do, the house I would consider, it’s great that you are into rescues of ramshackled old houses.
But for gods sake you are in the Maine woods, looking at an old old house next to a sketchy gravel pit, have you never heard of Steven King and his Nightshift short stories?:eek::eek:
As of right now, I doubt we’ll pursue the property. I feel like even if this turns out to be nothing, being next to a gravel pit and/or landfill isn’t good for resale. We are still going to keep an eye on it, and maybe make a really lowball offer if things clear up, but I would say the situation will lower resale by at least $50K, and possibly make it impossible to sell at all. Which would suck. Thank you all for the input!
Mining face. That is what you call the area in a mine where they are removing rock.
I live in Eliot and received a letter to get our well water tested, but NO further details. I am online researching, and all I’ve come up with so far are two articles, but no concrete information. For some reason, the federal government is not giving details.
Check Seacoastonline for two articles (one in March, one in April). Additionally, that new development near the Gravel Pit that you are referencing – my friend built a house in that development and THEN learned that when they are blasting at the gravel pit (dynamite), it shakes the windows in their house.
Their neighbor actually had their home foundation crack from one such blast. So before you purchase the property, I would find out if the blasting is going to be an issue for you, as well as getting the water tested.
Thanks, cristinagh. Interesting. I’m sorry to hear about your friend’s dynamite woes. It’s looking like we’re going to be passing on this property, despite my love for it. 
I think the re-sale is just too risky. If you find out anything else about this, I would love to hear from you either on this forum or by e-mail.
IMO your health is a much bigger concern than getting a neat house cheap. Nobody here can tell you what was there, and you may never get the whole story. Skip it, look for a better location.