Overflow from the Pocasset and Pawtuxet rivers has left the site of the partly built Cullion Concrete batching plant under about two feet of water.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

CRANSTON — With water edging more than half way up truck tires and lapping around the metal skeleton that is supposed to become a concrete batching plant off Pontiac Avenue, area residents pointed to the flooded property yesterday as further proof that the business doesn’t belong on the cusp of their Eden Park neighborhood.

City Council chambers, community meeting rooms and Superior Court have been the forums where the residents’ opposition to the proposal by Cullion Concrete Corp. have been played out in recent months, but yesterday the area was a dead-end spur of Hamilton Road which is bordered on one side by the Bethany Lutheran Cemetery and on the other by a steep slope descending to the roughly 10-acre Cullion site on Marine Drive.

“Look at that, there’s already at least two feet of water and its going to continue to rise for most of the day,” said Bud Reall, a resident of nearby Howland Road and one of nearly 100 residents opposing the plant. “How could they approve this?”

Reall and other residents who are challenging the plant on many fronts said they found the flooding particularly alarming because it occurred just days after they learned that the state Department of Environmental Management had granted a wetlands permit allowing construction of the concrete plant.

The flooding, however, neither surprised nor alarmed a representative for Cullion or DEM officials.

“The fact that the property is in a flood plain — which is the reason it needed a permit from DEM — means that it is susceptible to occasional flooding during periods of substantial rain,” said Robert D. Murray, a lawyer for Cullion. “This has been industrial property for the last 50 years, and when I drove there this morning, I expected to see water.”

The property on which Cullion started building a concrete “wet batching” plant last year, before the matter became mired in controversy, is low-lying land at the end of Marine Drive. The land is in a floodplain bordered on the south by the Pocasset River and to the east by the Pawtuxet River.

Charles Hobert, supervising environmental scientist for the DEM, said Cullion was issued a permit on Monday of last week because its plan was “an insignificant alternation to freshwater wetlands.” The permit lists 20 conditions Cullion must follow to remain in compliance with the state.

“How could they issue a permit for this?” Reall demanded yesterday as he watched water from the two rivers slowly rise around equipment on the site. “Are they issuing it based on just a paper process without ever visiting the site? That’s what the city did with the building permit.”

Hobert said the state is aware that the site floods after significant rainstorms and that the DEM was also aware of significant neighborhood concerns and made sure that the application underwent a “very rigorous” review process — including several visits to the property.

The plant is being designed so that most of its hoppers and tanks will be well above flood level, he said, and Murray added that electrical outlets and motors will be high enough in the buildings so as not to be affected by rising storm water.

Also, Hobert said some of the conditions the DEM has proposed are aimed at preventing pollutants from being washed back into the rivers after flooding. One such condition states that prior to major storms all vehicles stored on the property will be relocated and any residual liquids in the truck wash area will be pumped to safe storage.

Cullion is being required to construct a self-contained truck wash that will collect all solids and waste water.

Although obtaining the DEM permit is important to Cullion, it does nothing to remove the other roadblocks the project faces on a local level.

A well-organized group of residents from the surrounding neighborhood and beyond wants the Zoning Board of Review to revoke the building permit that was issued for the plant, which Cullion representatives estimate is about 40 percent complete and represents an investment of at least $1 million thus far.

Residents have raised a multitude of concerns ranging from health risks from pollutants in the dust from the plant to concerns that area housing values will plummet.

They have the support of most City Council members who have gone on record opposing the plant and who last year passed a resolution asking the zoning board to rescind the building permit.

The city’s actions prompted Cullion to turn to Superior Court in an attempt to bypass any hearings on the local level on the grounds that the council’s vocal opposition had tainted the governmental process and guaranteed that the project would not get a fair review in the city.

In February, a Superior Court judge denied Cullion’s request to have the status of its building permit heard in court, but the company appealed to the state Supreme Court and this month the high court said it will hear the case.

In the meantime, there are other motions from both sides of the issue pending in Superior Court. Some were heard on Thursday, Murray said, without substantial developments.

He said that while Cullion’s case is pending before the Supreme Court, the residents, through their lawyer Richard E. Crowell Jr., still have a motion in Superior Court asking that the building permit for the partially complete concrete plant be revoked.

Murray said the matter has become so tangled in legal actions and motions and counter motions that it has taken on a life of its own and generated unnecessary citywide interest.

“I can understand why the neighborhood residents are concerned, because this is right near where they live. What I have trouble with is when a lady from Dean Estates [a hilltop neighborhood a couple of miles away] is asking what’s going on.”

bpoliche@projo.com