A Virginia-based company is seeking to quarry and process granite from Heagen Mountain in Prospect, Maine, and some local residents are not pleased by the prospect. Salmons Inc. of Virginia Beach has filed applications to build a 700-foot pier and 80,000-square-foot rock processing building off Bowden Point Road as part of the operation. The processed stone would be loaded onto barges on the lower Penobscot River and transported along the coast.

Heagen Mountain was quarried 50 years ago, and Prospect is now home to residential homeowners, many of whom do not want the noise and dust associated with granite processing, not to mention potentially harmful environmental issues such as using more groundwater than can be replenished and stirring up mercury-contaminated sediments in the Penobscot. 

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has rejected earlier applications by Salmons to build its pier and granite-crushing facility, but revised applications will certainly be submitted. If Maine DEP determines that the permit applications are complete and satisfactory, the public has 20 days to request a hearing.