A state environmental board on Wednesday morning imposed a quarter-million dollar fine on the Worcester family for building more than 50 unpermitted cabins in Washington County.
The Worcesters, who recently scrapped their plans to build an enormous $1 billion-plus veterans history park in Columbia Falls, did not get state approval to develop more than three acres and did not take any measures to control erosion or sedimentation at the cabin site, according to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
The $250,000 penalty is part of a consent agreement approved Wednesday by the state Board of Environmental Protection. Morrill Worcester, the managing member of the family company that owns the land where the cabins were built, signed the agreement last month.
It requires the Worcesters to file an after-the-fact application by March 1 for a permit for the already completed work. Development of the cabins took place from 2019 to 2022, according to state officials.
There was discussion among members of the board about how DEP should proceed if the Worcesters do not submit an application for the work in the next two days.
Department officials said they do have discretion in enforcing the deadline and, if there is a compelling reason, could decide to wait “a day or two” before referring the matter to the state attorney’s general office for further legal action.
Susan Lessard, chair of the board, said that the Worcesters have had five years to apply for the required state permits. She characterized the violation as “egregious,” and said she worries the enforcement and compliance process will drag out even further if the state does not set a hard deadline.
“If you don’t make a date mean anything, after five years, what’s the point of setting a date at all?” Lessard said. “This [enforcement] process has been going on for two years.”
The board voted 6-0 to accept the consent agreement with the Worcesters.
There were no representatives for the Worcesters at the meeting.
State law required the Worcesters to get a permit and do erosion control work prior to constructing the cabins at the edge of a blueberry field between Centerville Road and Tenny Brook in Columbia Falls. The development was named Flagpole View Cabins after the unbuilt tower that the Worcesters anticipated to build near the site.
The steep fine comes roughly a month after the Worcester family scrapped its plans to build the tower — which would have been taller than the Empire State Building — northeast of Columbia Falls. The observation tower would have doubled as the world’s tallest flagpole and been the focal point of the $1 billion-to-$2 billion park that the Worcesters wanted to develop over thousands of acres that are currently forested.
The Worcesters’ plan for the flagpole park called for Columbia Falls to annex more than 16 square miles of adjacent Unorganized Territory in Centerville and Township 19 so that the entire development would be located in the town.
That annexation now likely won’t happen, town officials said, but regardless of whether the Worcesters or other entities might come up with other development projects, Columbia Falls is poised to adopt much tighter development standards.
Since the flagpole project was first publicized in March 2022, the town has been working diligently to draft new development restrictions, adopting a 180-day development ban and then extending it another 180 days so that it would have time before any significant proposals made it to the planning board. The moratorium remains in effect, town officials have said.
On March 19, Columbia Falls voters are expected to vote in favor of adopting the new restrictions, which would be retroactive to early 2022, before the flagpole park concept was announced. It would apply to any plans the Worcesters might have to construct more cabins off Centerville Road, town officials said.
