DOUGLASS (Mont.) – A settlement has been reached between the township and Mountain Mulch requiring the company to cease all mulching operations at the Sassamansville Road farm by the end of the year.
The settlement, which includes a number of neighbors who had joined the township’s legal action, was reached last month and stops all other legal action that was underway until Dec. 31.
Mountain Mulch has until that time to find an alternative location for its business and to cease all mulching operations on the site at 244 Sassamansville Road.
The agreement calls for the company to vacate the property, cease all mulch operations permanently or sell the property.
Should Mountain Mulch be unable to obtain permits for an alternate location by Dec. 31, the agreement automatically gives the company another three months during which all legal action will continue to be stayed.
Should Mountain Mulch sell the property, the agreement requires that a deed restriction have the effect of abandoning the zoning hearing board permit which allowed the mulch operation to begin in the first place.
The agreement also calls for the company to remove the earthen berm ‘which extends along the edge of the property owned by Alan and Karen Keiser.’
The Keisers, along with Martin and Joan DiCicco, Donald and Nina Orner, and Louis and Kathryn Farrell, were the neighbors who joined in the township’s legal action against Mountain Mulch. Known by the legal term ‘intervenors,’ under the terms of the agreement the neighbors are to ‘refrain from calling any press conferences and will refrain from disparaging Mountain Mulch.’
However, the agreement does allow them to testify before the Montgomery County Farm Board or the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture’s Farm Board ‘pertaining to the issue of whether mulching and mulch production facilities are appropriate uses under the applicable statutes regarding preserved agricultural security areas.’
However, the agreement also insists they ‘refrain from disparaging Mountain Mulch in their testimony.’
When and if Mountain Mulch decides to sell the 53-acre farm, the township will have to negotiate a separate purchasing agreement, but nothing in the agreement obligates the township to purchase the site.
Since it first opened on preserved farmland, the operation has been controversial, with neighbors arguing the company routinely violated the restrictions placed on it by the township Zoning Board, as well as the spirit of preserving farmland as open space.
Then, on Nov. 3, 2013, the stakes got raised when a fire broke out at Mountain Mulch. The fire was extinguished over the course of several hours and no one was injured, but the incident created a tipping point with township supervisors.
At a meeting the next night, the board of supervisors voted to begin filing zoning violations and pursue the site’s ultimate closure.