A wooded acreage in a rural New Brunswick village is slated to become the site of a rock quarry.
But Kim Meyerdierks wants area residents to know that wasn’t her family’s intention when they sold the property in 2019.
“We didn’t sell to a corporation knowingly,” the Bangor, Me., resident said in an interview.
Opponents of the proposed quarry in the village of Calhoun believe it could destroy their small community, which is located about 30 kilometres northwest of Sackville, CHMA previously reported.
Her family has roots in the Memramcook area going back several generations. They decided to sell the property after her aunt, June Burmeister, died in 2014.
They hoped to sell the property to a family that would take care of the land.
“We wanted to make sure we weren’t selling to a corporation,” she said. “That was our only stipulation to our realtor. We were just interested in families or individual property buyers.”
When Alain Belanger of Grand Falls bought the property in 2019, they didn’t know he was the co-owner of an asphalt paving company that operates throughout Atlantic Canada.
That company, Northern Construction and Suppliers, later applied for a rezoning to allow for intensive resource development.
The provincial government approved that application, despite a petition and a report from the Southeast Regional Services Commission that recommended against the rezoning.
Northern Construction didn’t respond to multiple requests for an interview with Alain Belanger. CHMA also reached out to his brother and business partner, Daniel Belanger, who declined to comment.
Listen to the audio report that aired on CHMA on June 27, 2022.
Last year, VINCI Construction, a French multinational, announced that it had “signed an agreement to acquire the construction companies of the family-run Northern Group of Companies.”
But the land in Calhoun wasn’t part of that deal, according to Benoit Pouliout, who works for Eurovia, a subsidiary of VINCI. “It is not our property,” he said.
Provincial records indicate the land is currently owned by a company called B2 Investments, located in Grand Falls.
The directors of that company are Daniel and Alain Belanger, according to corporate records from Service New Brunswick.
Kim Meyerdierks says her family was shocked to hear that a rock quarry is planned for land in New Brunswick that’s so close to their hearts.
“For the the people on that road, if they can do anything to mitigate [the effects of the quarry], this would be a good thing,” she said, adding that she hopes the company will find another location.
“Don’t destroy this community.”