Town officials say neighborhood complaints in the immediate aftermath of blasting in April at Rawson Materials in Charlton will yield tighter controls at the aggregate-producing site, but some residents are skeptical that anything will change for the positive.

Eric Borgeson of 18 Larnerd Hill Road, Charlton, said his complaints about a nearby mining operation now owned by Rawson Materials go back about a decade, when Hylka Construction ran the property. His most recent protestations were made at a Charlton Board of Health meeting earlier this year on the heels of blasting on the site on April 18. That, Borgeson told town officials, resulted in his neighborhood being cloaked in dust. 

“Blasting is part of it,” Borgeson said by phone recently. “But it’s the constant environmental impact, the noise … We’ve lived here for 30 years. It was a small family-owned mining operation surrounded by forest and buffer. Over the years, they’ve clear cut and expanded.”

For their part, the town, and Rawson Materials, which acquired the property and aggregate mining operations in late 2025, acknowledge the dust caused by the April 18 blasting. Multiple town officials told The YankeeXpress they took Borgeson’s complaints and the concerns of the neighborhood seriously.

The matter was to be discussed at a June 2 Board of Health meeting that was ultimately canceled. The agenda item was then included on the agenda for a June 23 meeting, listed under “New Business” as “Rawson Materials blasting and health concerns.” It was not discussed, however, with Health Director Jim Philbrook saying he had received a call from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) about another issue involving Rawson Materials. There was no formal vote to hold the item, but responding to a query from Vice Chair Jon Sanborn, Chair Matt Gagne said the item would be added to a future agenda. 

Before the start of the June 23 meeting, Gagne declined an offer to be interviewed. 

 According to Fire Chief Rob Barton, whose department is responsible for monitoring the blasting, a meeting involving town officials and representatives of Rawson Materials and Maine Drilling and Blasting (MDB), a company whose Milford-based office oversees blasting operations in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, was held on May 11 at the Rawson Materials' site at which time MDB agreed to a plan to mitigate the results of blasting at the Rawson facility in the future. 

That meeting did not include abutters. 

More blasting was conducted on Tuesday, June 16. 

Reached by phone on Thursday, June 18, Barton said that activity went off without issue. 

Borgeson, speaking by phone after the June 16 blasting to determine whether he concurred with Barton’s assessment, said he and his wife were not home at that time. “Generally, they’ll do a tiny ‘blast’ after there’s a complaint,” Borgeson said. “They say they’re making improvements. What they’re not talking about is this is happening every week for years and years, and the impact it has.”

Referring to the plan agreed upon at the meeting, Barton said: “The plan was put in place, they followed it, and there were no issues.” He said he personally observed the blast from the Larnerd Hill Road neighborhood. “There was no dust in the air, no concern. We didn’t receive any calls from anyone.”

Immediately following the April 18 blast, Barton had said in an earlier phone interview, multiple calls were logged by the department. 

Asked for a copy of the mediation plan, Barton referred this reporter to MDB. However, multiple voice messages left with their Milford office were not returned. 

In a phone conversation, Madilyn Smith, chief legal and administrative officer for Rawson Materials, said the plan involved efforts to closely monitor wind direction at the time of blasting. 

Smith also said the company maintains a “blasting call list” and tries to notify abutters multiple times ahead of a blast. 

Another Larnerd Hill Road resident, whose property is just a couple minutes’ drive away from the pit, said that used to be the case when the operation was run by Hylka, but that he only finds out about blasting now if he goes on social media. 

Still, the resident, who asked not to be identified but said he has lived on Larnerd Hill Road for 30 years, said he is not aware of any damage caused by the blasting. Unlike Borgeson, he said he has not experienced any dust coating on his properties.

“It’s the noise,” he said. “If you’re not expecting it, it can be quite unsettling.

“I mean, it’s a business,” he continued. “It’s a mining operation. I used to get my stone dust from [Hylka].”

That, the resident continued as he stood in the driveway of another property he owns on Larnerd Hill Road, doesn’t mean he isn’t put off by the work being done.

“Would I like them to stop? Absolutely,” he said. 

While he is not worried about dust, he said he is concerned about continued blasting and encroachment. 

“There’s been a lot of clear cutting,” he said, adding there is a spot on Larnerd Hill where once the view was thick with trees. That is not the case anymore, he said. 

“There have been complaints over the years from various individuals in the neighborhood regarding the blasting,” Town Administrator Andrew Golas said. “We definitely take this seriously and want to ensure [Rawson Materials] remain good neighbors. Due to the nature of the activity happening here, there is a sensitivity we need to balance.”

One of the complaints was from A F Putnam Road property owner Robert Doyle, who actually sued the town and Francis J. Hylka, Jr., of Hylka Construction in 2016, in part claiming injury from the noise generated by Hylka’s blasting on the property. The multi-year court case yielded an appellate court decision in Doyle’s favor, but Hylka, and now Rawson Materials, has been allowed to operate as a “grandfathered” operation even after the Town of Charlton adopted its first-ever comprehensive zoning bylaws in 1987. 

Still, according to the Superior Court decision in 2022, the operator of the mining operation, then Hylka Construction, “does not … have the unfettered right to extend or modify its mining activity on the property.” 

“… it is entirely possible that further expansion in scope, location, or degree of the blasting or other mining activity in the future could exceed levels that are permissible …,” the decision stated. 

In a recent interview, Doyle, who now resides in Holliston but still owns his Charlton property, said, “As a neighbor, I believe they’ve absolutely exceeded the footprint because of the impact on our neighborhoods.”

For its part, Mass DEP has had dealings with the mining operation. 

In information provided to Yankee Express South by MassDEP Public Affairs Assistant Director Fabienne Alexis, the agency received a complaint in early May about “improper blasting” at Rawson Materials. MassDEP, according to Alexis, contacted the Charlton Fire Department and Board of Health, and were informed of the town’s intent to meet with Rawson “to discuss protocols needed to approve future blasting.”

According to MassDEP, Rawson Materials is currently in compliance with the agency’s Air Quality Approval, or AQ Plan. 

The information from MassDEP also noted the agency issued a Notice of Noncompliance to previous owner Hylka Construction Co, in 2017 for failing to obtain a limited plan approval.

Walter Bird is a freelance writer for The YankeeXpress. He is the former executive editor of Stonebridge Press Newspapers, former editor of Worcester Magazine, and was a two-time recipient of the New England Newspaper & Press Association’s Weekly Reporter of the Year for New England.