NStar, the so-called public utility, has become a public menace.
In contempt of the resolutions of all Cape and Vineyard towns, the company is targetting in 2014 the following: Falmouth, Bourne, Sandwich; Barnstable, Dennis, Yarmouth; Harwich, Wellfleet and Truro. On Martha’s Vineyard: Edgartown, Oak Bluffs, Tisbury.
Two citizens who have worked hard trying to keep track of NStar are Laura Kelley of POCCA (Protect Our Cape Cod Aquifer) and Sue Phelan of GreenCAPE. This in a recent email from Phelan:
“NStar will resume spraying very shortly (one NStar employee has reported it could be as early as March!) but are secretive about exactly when and where. They have been asked several times but it’s always a hassle to get NStar to disclose dates and locations of spraying though they are required to notice abutters. They are required to publish a newspaper notice as well –which I haven’t seen yet.
“Hardly anyone saw them last winter when they sprayed thousands of gallons of “product” on private and public property above the drinking water supply. According to the labelling on the chemicals, which has the standing of law, it is illegal to use those chemicals when the wind is above 10 mph. Many of those days had unsettled weather with winds over 20, sometimes gusting to 40.”
You get the picture. The company is being as uncooperative and sneaky as possible. As Phelan says, “I think NStar realizes that if that information was public, they’d be meeting a load of opposition upclose and personal on the right-of-ways (ROWs).”
What can we do?
Get on this. Be alert. Scour the newspaper—probably the Cape Cod Times—for the required notification.
Call and email to alert friends and neighbors that spraying is imminent. That includes not just ROW abutters but anyone who draws water from a well, which of course includes those on town water (which comes from a well in Wellfleet not far from the ROW).
Be in touch with non resident taxpayers about what’s going on in their absence.
Contact your town’s health agent and relevant boards to ask that they stand behind their resolutions against spraying. Ask them to notify townspeople of this threat to their health.
Ask the town to send to all citizens suggestions about how to protect their health both when the spraying is going on and afterwards. (See “What We Can Do To Protect Ourselves” on the POCCA website, below).
Ask towns to monitor the wind level to make sure NStar obeys the 10 mph limit (more days than not on the Cape the wind blows harder than that). NStar at present monitors itself, according to Phelan, using their intuitive reading of the movement of tree branches.
(Question: if the chemicals are harmless, as claimed, what’s the problem with their blowing directly on people, animals, children in the yards adjacent to the ROW?)
Ask the town if they intend to post sprayed areas to alert people walking there of the danger.
If NStar starts spraying in your area, show up at the spraying sites. These are fellow humans making this happen, both the ones in suits and the ones in work clothes doing the actual spraying. “It’s just my job” is no excuse. Shame them
Seems like there ought to be a basis for somebody to sue, an abutter, a group of abutters,, a health agent responsible to protect citizen health.
The rest is up to our imagination.
Contact info for GreenCAPE: www.GreenCAPE.org; Suephelan@comcast.net; 508 362 5927.
For POCCA (Protect Our Cape Cod Aquifer) www.poccacapecod.org; poccacapecod@gmail; 774 353 6511
No Comments