Kim Weeks said June 21, the prospect of Crooker Construction blasting in its pit behind her Bailey Road, Alna home doesn't bother her.

She grew up around construction and landscaping, Weeks said in a phone interview.

"I knew when I got the place what I was moving next to," a pit, she added.

According to Weeks and Crooker engineer Mike Abbott, the area the Topsham firm wants to blast is nearest her.

Abbott has talked with Weeks. On June 20, he talked with selectmen. The son of past, longtime selectman David Abbott told a town office meeting room full of officials and other residents, the firm wants to quarry, or blast to make rocks, at its Alna-Whitefield gravel pit. The rocks would then be crushed on-site as the firm already does with gravel there, Abbott said.

A lot of Maine gravel pits now have quarrying, he said.

The proposal needs planning board approval, selectmen said. Planning Board Chair Beth Whitney said it meets July 2 at the fire station. Abbott planned to submit an application in time.

Under the town’s 2002 approval of the pit’s expansion from Whitefield into Alna, any blasting would need to comply with Topsham’s blasting ordinance. Based on that, Abbott anticipates blasting at most one day a week, three blasts a day. But it’s up to the town, he said. “We’ll work with whatever.” The firm would seek annual approval, give notice of each blasting day and likely not blast before 10 a.m., he said.

A blast used to be one explosion that would go boom, but now a series of blasting caps go off milliseconds apart, way into the rock underground, he said.

"So it’s not a bang, it's more of a w-w-whoomph. At Kim’s house it’ll be louder.” He said the firm monitors wells within 250 feet for turbidity. Weeks’ property is the only one that applies but the firm may also monitor Mike and Amy Preston’s and maybe another, he said. The firm can do more, to a point, he said. “We can’t monitor every house in town.”

Blasting will be kept to one acre, Abbott said. More of the pit will likely follow after this year, he said. Exceeding an acre takes a Maine Department of Environmental Protection permit; he expects a straightforward process because the site is already permitted for gravel extraction. "I don't think there are a lot of hurdles. We're not affecting new resources. We're not moving into a new area." But he added getting DEP approval for anything is not very easy.

When he talked with DEP, the agency told him to start with the town, he said.

Third Selectman Doug Baston said he liked that the firm was starting with one acre as a beta test for a possible larger operation.