A legal settlement has ended the long-running Mountain Mulch controversy.
Douglass (Mont.) Township Solicitor Paul Bauer informed the public during June 15’s township supervisors’ meeting that the settlement was reached during a May 21 hearing before Judge Calvin S. Drayer Jr.
“I think at this point, this is finally ended,” said Bauer.
The new settlement was actually built on top of a May 2014 settlement the township had charged the Sassamansville Road site with violating by not meeting the deadline to cease all operations and having all mulch and equipment removed from the property by March 31.
The company had argued in letters to Bauer that it had complied with the agreement, but the neighbors who initiated the legal fight informed township officials that was not true.
But it is now.Bauer told The Mercury Monday that by the time Mountain Mulch agreed to the new settlement in front of Judge Drayer “the property was 95 percent cleaned-up already.”
That was confirmed by Alan Keiser, one of the neighbors in the group that pushed the township and then joined in the legal fight against the operations on site, which they argued was too intense for preserved farmland and violated the zoning hearing decision that had allowed it to operate in the first place.
“It’s very quite now,” Keiser said with a smile after the meeting.
Keiser said he and his neighbors were awarded $3,000 in legal fees by Drayer as part of the settlement.
According to Bauer’s written report to the supervisors, the township received $2,000 for legal fees.
A “maximum penalty”was also included in the settlement should Mountain Mulch fail to meet the terms this time, but Bauer told The Mercury that penalty is moot because “they’ve essentially complied within 10 days of the agreement.”
“Boy, without Mountain Mulch,” joked supervisors’ Chairman John Stasik, “we’ll have to find something else to talk about.”
For many years, Mountain Mulch was a main topic of discussion at township meetings.
As far back as 2012, residents of Sassamansville have been complaining about the truck traffic, smell, noise and mess brought to their bucolic village by Mountain Mulch.
The company operated on as much as 13 acres of property that is protected by an agricultural easement and many argued it was too large and too commercial to meet the restrictions of that designation.
On Nov. 3, 2013, a fire at the site subsequently pushed the township supervisors to not only seek zoning violations against the company, but its ultimate closure.
Then, last May, a settlement between the township, the company and several neighbors was announced.
The settlement called for the company to vacate the property by the end of 2014, and to take its mulch as well.
However, the agreement also contained an automatic extension, giving Mountain Mulch until March 31 to meet the agreements of the condition.
It was the company’s failure to meet this deadline that convinced the township to take them to court once more.
