Lime Rock residents to track: Keep it clean

SALISBURY — An environmental issue at Lime Rock Park that was the subject of multiple complaints has evidently been cleaned up.

John “Skip� Barber III, owner of the park, was at the Sept. 4 Board of Selectmen meeting, along with his director of marketing, Georgia Blades, as the board reviewed a series of complaints about discarded tires, barrels and batteries lying about the property of the 50-year-old auto racing center.

Selectman Peter Oliver said he was checking his mailbox the week of Aug. 27 when he discovered two letters from members of the Lime Rock Committee describing what Oliver termed as “serious allegations about improprieties� at the track. First Selectman Curtis Rand was out of town, so Oliver visited the track Aug. 30 and spoke with Blades about the complaints.

In the Aug. 13 letter, Martha Miller, president of the Lime Rock Committee, told the selectmen she was launching a formal complaint against the park and what she called the “Lime Rock Park Dump,� a section in the northeastern corner of the park containing barrels and mounds of discarded tires.

She said one of her witnesses estimated there were 500 tires, some of which were sitting in the nearby Salmon Kill, a creek that runs through the park and into the Housatonic River. Miller also enclosed images of the tires and barrels she said were photographed on July 24, 2007.

Blades told Oliver the park had hired Safety-Kleen, a company specializing in environmental clean-up. Most of the barrels were empty, she said, but some that contained oil or an oil-and-water mix were pumped out and taken away. During Oliver’s visit, Blades also told him the park had been paying $1,000 per month to have the tires removed “as a continuing way of disposing of them.� They are all gone now, Oliver said.

Rand explained that many of the barrels in question had been used previously as garbage cans and really amounted to little more than “scrap metal.� He added that he would ask the town Conservation Commission, which enforces certain town and state environmental regulations, to put the matter on the agenda for its next meeting.

Barber and Blades said little during the selectmen’s meeting, but in a brief interview afterward Barber said the state Department of Environmental Protection had visited the park recently and given it a clean bill of health.

Meanwhile, Miller’s group has been protesting Barber’s plans for The Club at Lime Rock, an upscale racing club for wealthy enthusiasts. During the park’s Rolex Vintage Festival races over Labor Day weekend, several members of the Lime Rock Committee posted symbolic “for sale by owner� signs in front of their homes.

“If Skip is selling his part of the valley to people from Fairfield County, we’re selling ours,� Miller said. In addition, several “Stop the Club� signs have been spotted in recent days.

Miller said her group “wants to improve the environment of the whole White Hollow Valley.�

The committee is also concerned about any attempt by Barber to expand the park, such as the club and its planned new clubhouse and a pit lane dedicated to the club’s new members.

“We’re dealing with track creep,� said Miller, a tax attorney and former member of the Lime Rock Protective Association, which protested the building of the park 50 years ago but has since disbanded. “The track expands without supervision from the town.�

Miller cited a go-cart track built by Barber for which her group has been unable to find a zoning permit. In addition, cars are loaded and unloaded late at night, in violation of ordinances, she said.

In a news release last month, Barber said the new club, which allows members access to the track in their own cars, had attracted approximately a member a day in the 30 days since the club’s July unveiling.

Memberships in the new club will cost $100,000 with monthly dues of $550. Barber will limit the membership to 300. The maximum membership would therefore generate more than $30 million for the track. Barber has insisted the revenue will go toward improvements to the track and its facilities.

A 1959 injunction pursued by the Lime Rock Protective Association against Sunday racing still stands, although in 2005 Barber proposed to alter the terms of the injunction to allow for Sunday afternoon racing during the July 4 weekend and as a possible rain-date for the one stock car race the park holds each season. Barber said that proposal is still in the talking stages and he has not filed any court papers.

“I haven’t see anything on that,� Miller said of Barber’s Sunday racing proposal. “He ran into a lot of opposition.�

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