But where that soil goes – especially when it’s contaminated – is a complicated issue, pitting a project’s budget against the cost of environmentally-sound disposal against state and federal regulations.
Uxbridge became one of several towns around the state to become home to such a site – two in fact: one at a lot on Millville Road that is now chained off, and the other on the farm on South Street, which was previously a gravel pit for decades.
Local officials fear if the soil reclamation projects led to a contamination event, they would have no way to provide municipal water to people affected by it.
Under pressure from locals, the property owner, Elias Richardson, and the soil broker, Patrick Hannon, signed an agreement with the DEP called an ACO in August 2016, which required random sampling and testing of incoming loads, among other things.
While the work stopped at the Millville Road site, the work at Green Acres on South Street kept going until the preliminary injunction.
The site accepted truck loads until the injunction from the court.
But the soil reclamation project took the lot to a new direction.
When the practice started, Uxbridge had a ban on landfills, but no protections against soil reclamation activities.
In January, health officials in Middleboro passed new regulations that banned the importation of contaminated soil to town.
“A lot of us, we’ve been working on this for two and a half years and we’re now becoming active in the town because we’re still seeing pressure from Hannon to try and take over our town government,” Franz said.