John Churchill, of small business engineering and servicing firm JC Engineering, appealed to Selectmen Tuesday night to reduce earth removal fees from $0.50 back to $0.25.

Churchill was representing Graziano Redi-Mix of Bridgewater, a concrete company that services the South Shore, and specializes in residential and commercial concrete work. The board had doubled the fee at its last meeting, after Churchill brought a three-year earth removal renewal request to the board for Graziano property on Glen Charlie Road. Churchill said the permit had been in effect since 2006.

Churchill argued on behalf of Graziano that the company was only utilizing a small portion of the property, and were currently paying taxes on the property as residential, developable land, without tax exemptions. The permit in place allows Graziano to use 50 trucks per day, but they are only using about five trucks.

Because Graziano is not using as much equipment or manpower as the permit allows, and the company pays taxes on time, Churchill said, increasing the fee did not make sense.

“We just think that increasing the [fee] from $0.25 to $0.50 is a little aggressive,” Churchill said. “They would be very taken aback, if this board was trying to increase that on them.”

Selectwoman Judith Whiteside, who originally made the motion to raise the fee, motioned to drop the fee back down to $0.25. The motion passed, although Selectman Peter Teitelbaum said he would have only dropped it down to $0.30.