Less than two weeks after ground was formally broken on GlobalFoundries’s $4.2 billion microchip factory in Malta, the company is asking the town for permission to extend its construction hours.
Work hours were set at 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday, during the planningn process, with the expectation that some extended and 24-hour periods would be needed during the pouring of concrete and other sensitive stages. The developer is asking for those hours to be extended to 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Rick Whitney of M+W Zander, GlobalFoundries’s construction consultant, explained that heavy rain as of late has caused clearing work, which started mid-June, to fall behind schedule by 30 hours, a 4-day delay.
We have had a very wet June and July, he said. `The contractor on site has been impacted substantially.`
He said even with the extended hours, crews would stop work at dusk.
The Delaney Group of Gloversville is handling the earthmoving and site clearing work. Whitney said that workers have had to spend significant time maintaining the site’s stormwater management plan, but have also recently completed a 50-foot dirt berm that is meant to mitigate construction noise for nearby homes.
A complaint hotline was put into use for the first time in mid-July, when a resident on Thimbleberry Road called on a Saturday morning to complain about the backup beepers on trucks at the site. According to Stu Messinger, project manager for the town, the resident was pleased with how the system snapped into action.
`I thought the response mechanism worked pretty well in that the person received a response within 20 minutes,` he said.
It’s unlikely that backup beepers will go away, though. Noise tests made after the complaint revealed that noise was within agreed upon levels, with some of the loudest readings being on the scale of `bird songs and rustling leaves,` said Whitney. He also said the beepers cannot be disabled or replaced by lights for safety reasons.
`We have talked about going to strobes during nighttime workunfortunately during daylight the strobes are not a safe practice,` he said.
Building and Planning Coordinator Anthony Tozzi said that other solutions should be researched.
`I think we’re going to have a problem unless there’s something that we can do that’s less audible,` he said.
It was also suggested that the noise mitigation berm, which was not completed when the complaint was made, could have made a difference. Town officials promised to take a field trip to observe the noise.
The decision of whether to extend the hours is ultimately up to the town’s Building and Planning Department, but the Town Board weighed in at its Monday, Aug. 3, meeting. Council members were hesitant to approve of the extension, but carefully nodded towards a 30-day trial of longer hours with Saturday kept at the original length.
Members of the public were also given a chance to speak.
`I’m disappointed that we’re just two weeks into this project and we’re already hearing this request,` said Patty Heidelmark, who is a member of the town’s Luther Forest Community Response Board. She applauded the Town Board for exercising caution in reviewing the proposal.
Tozzi said on Monday that he expected a decision by the end of the week. Check with www.spotlightnews.com or read next week’s Saratoga Spotlight for more on this story.
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