It was a classic confrontation.
The utility company NStar came to Nauset Regional High School in Eastham August 12 to present the rationale for their scheduled herbicide spraying of the power lines right of way through outer Cape towns. Over 100 citizens showed up to object.
There was an array of experts (including reps from relevant state departments) to explain why the company, which has the obigation to manage growth in the right-of-way to keep the juice flowing, was changing its policy from mechanical “mowing” to spraying with herbicides and how the spraying was perfectly safe. The chemicals they would be using, they patiently explained, fell well under established safe levels. In one case, it was one billionth of permissable levels of toxicity. Not to worry.
Some of the feisty citizens, mostly from Eastham and Wellfleet, came prepared to dispute some of reassurances, pointing out the small print of the company’s own literature that said that this or that had not in fact been tested.
But mostly what citizens established by the end of the evening was reasonable doubt. Nothing against NStar and its experts. Nobody’s accusing anybody of willfully misleading anybody. Most of us don’t have the expertise to challenge the validity of the testing of the proposed cocktail of fosamine ammonium, glyphosate, imazapyur and metsulfuron methyl. But the fact is, 50 years down the road from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a road littered with many cautionary tales of corporate assurances that proved hollow, no company with a plan to put chemicals in the ground would be trusted by most p eople. Nor should they be. A Wellfleet woman arose to point out that some decades ago the power company of that era was using notorious dioxin to do its weeding.
In this case it is calm, scientific confidence that seems naive and irrational, and skepticism that seems entirely reasonable.
Company reps stuck around to answer questions. I asked company spokesman Mike Durand: You wanted us to hear your reassuring test results. Ok, we heard them. But did you hear the passionate skepticism from your fellow citizens? Do you now maybe understand a little better the sound basis of reasonable doubt? And are you prepared to go back to the company and report that, given this reasonable doubt, maybe we should think again about this plan? Durand didn’t think that was likely.
Part of the problem is that the company has not made clear the dire need to make this controversial switch from mechnical mowing to chemicals. The chemicals, say the company, should prove to be more efficient, may even save some money down the line. But in the face of the widespread, reasonable mistrust, that seems a marginal improvement at best.
Sure, if by spraying dubious chemicals we could save the planet from an errant asteroid with our name on it or gain some other huge benefit, sure, spray away. But we’re not seeing any such advantage. The quid pro quo equation just doesn’t come close to working out.
According to its spokesman, NStar came to this meeting with no intention of letting citizen concerns affect its plan. So apparently it’s up to the towns to respond to citizen fears and stand up to the company. At the meeting Rep. Peake was asked what recourse citrizens had and she said she believed towns might have a basis for legal action against the company.
One of the panel of experts expressed skepticism of citizens’ green commitment: Sure, you want us to lay off the chemicals but won’t you and your fellow citizens be using them on your lawns? In answer to which came a chorus of No Way…not us, not here. The herbicide issue has been around for a long time. In Wellfleet a townwide ban on herbicides is being talked about as one way of halting NStar’s plan.
We don’t have a lot of time. The company says its window for spraying ends in Mid-October (although it doesn’t explain why next spring or summer wouldn’t do as well; its not as if those scrub pines grow more than a couple of inches a year. )
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