License hearing set for ABC Metals

By NATHAN LAMB | Milton Independent Staff Writer
miltonreporter@yahoo.com

The Shirley Avenue junkyard known as ABC Metals has been operating without a license the past six years, but business owner Gilbert Rhoades is looking to amend that situation this December.

Rhoades will be before the Selectboard on Monday December 10th seeking to get the company’s junkyard license re-instated. The public hearing is scheduled for 6:30 that evening.

While ABC Metals was cited for several junkyard and waste disposal violations by the state earlier in the year, Rhoades said the company has worked in good faith with all parties to address the issues. He said the Selectboard’s review should be an open-and-shut case.

“We have been scrutinized and required to do things above and beyond every other salvage yard in the state, period,” he said. “…There is no reason that we know of for them…to reject re-licensing us.”

The public hearing will be the latest chapter in what has been a busy year for Rhoades’ operation from a legal standpoint.

The junkyard has been the target of inquires from both the state Agency of Transportation and Agency of Natural Resources, and was served with a temporary injunction in May. Specific violations within that document included improper storage of hazardous waste from old cars, lack of a license, and a massive tire pile that was deemed both a mosquito breeding ground and fire hazard.

An agreement to remove the injunction was reached through Chittenden Superior Court in August. It required groundwater testing on the site and in neighboring areas, written plans for hazardous waste disposal, removal of the tire pile, installation of a fence between the junkyard and the Duck Court neighborhood, and a new license for ABC Metals.

Though testing for possible groundwater contamination was a major focus of agreements reached with the state, Rhoades has maintained there’s been no wrongdoing by his operation.

“All the testing they’d done before, they cannot find the wicked witch,” he told the Development Review Board in October. “All the testing has come up negative.”

Rhoades was before the Development Review Board in October and November because town planning staff advised that he would need a conditional use approval prior to seeking the junkyard license.

That issue centered on regulations adopted by the town in 1995 to cover previously non-registered junkyards, said town economic development coordinator Carrie Violette. The bylaw requires junkyards to secure conditional use approval before seeking a junkyard license, but the DRB deemed those regulations didn’t apply because ABC Metals obtained previous approvals from the town in 1974 and 1987.

Because of that, the DRB ruled that Rhoades’ request for conditional use approval was unnecessary and rejected it on Nov. 8, said Violette.
“They essentially felt he did not belong in front of the board,” she said..

Regardless of how the Selectboard votes, that doesn’t figure to be Rhoades’ last stop in the effort to get ABC Metals licensed. Town zoning enforcement officer David Joachim said the state Agency of Transportation would need to sign-off on any license approved by the Selectboard, though he gave no indication as on whether that’s a formality or a potential complication.

As for the Selectboard, Chairman James Manley acknowledged that the state’s issues with ABC Metals have been well publicized, but he wouldn’t speculate on a sense-of-the-board with this issue, saying only that review of the application hasn’t begun.

Manley added the state has clear guidelines for junkyard review, which include both location and aesthetic considerations. Overall, he said the process would likely begin with review of material submitted by the applicant and go from there.

“It’s going to be to receive the application and discuss it with the applicant, and we will hear from anyone in the public who wishes to weigh in,” he said.