The Day’s Jan. 17 edition published a letter from a Noank resident, “More than a self-serving mob?” castigating the citizens of Gales Ferry for opposition to a planned stone quarry adjacent to historic Fort Decatur. Self serving? You bet! If we do not look out for our own interests, who will? The negative effects on surrounding historic neighborhoods are legion: 10 years of noise, odors, toxic dust, seismic shock and eventually a gaping hole, left where 40 acres of the historic mountainside were converted into 16 acres of flat, industrially-zoned land, the use of which has not been disclosed. Neighboring residents invariably will suffer a steep decline in their property values. How many home-buyers wish to live across the street, particularly down-wind, from a rock mining-and-crushing operation?

The quarry’s contribution to the town’s tax base will be minimal unless we enact a tax on granite. Our solution to the current problem was made clear at each of the hearings. Every speaker closed by asking the commission to deny the application. The only person to enthusiastically speak in favor of it, tellingly, was a resident of another town.

Christopher “Kit” Foster

Gales Ferry