The utility company Eversource is spraying herbicides along power lines in 13 Cape towns this fall. The action is going ahead despite the fact that all 15 towns in Barnstable County have asked the utility to stop its spraying program.
The utility says its program is safe and has been approved by federal regulators. Further, a spokesman says the program is needed to keep the lines free from trees that can knock out power to thousands of people. In recent years, Eversource crews tried cutting the trees instead of spraying them, but people complained that they didn't like the way the landscape looked after the cutting.
People who are against the spraying area point out that the area includes nearly 40 percent of the Orleans watershed. Board of Selectman chairman Alan McClennen says their drinking water is at risk, and officials have to take matters into their own hands.
“We have a unique situation where our drinking supply is covered in part by Eversource lines,” he said. “So it’s important to us to really understand this.”
McClennen says town employees have been clearing vegetation along the lines to discourage Eversource from spraying, though the company has not been happy about it.
“I’m sure that we are just as qualified to create a meadow as they are, if we’re given the right directions,” he said.
He says the town is also considering taking the matter to court. Officials met with town counsel last week and asked him to research their legal options for the next round of spraying, which will happen in the spring. McClennen says he’s disappointed the utility and the state’s agriculture department, which oversees the spraying, seem to be ignoring their concerns. But, he says he remains hopeful they can get Eversource to stop.
“The world is full of historic cases where one person stood up in the beginning, and then three and four and five, and then in groups, and then they eventually prevailed,” he said.
McClennen says the clean up at the Mass. Military Reservation offers many lessons for officials when it comes to protecting and preserving the aquifer.
“People said don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it…no problem. And then eventually areas outside of that base began to find contamination in the groundwater,” he said. “It turned into one of the biggest cleanup projects in the history of the United States.”
Though he adds that he doesn’t think herbicide spraying is on the level of what officials found at the base, he says Cape towns can’t risk any level of contamination in the water source.
“The Cape is lucky in that we have a relatively clean fresh water supply, unlike other parts of the United States,” he said. “But we live on a sole source aquifer, and if we lose it, we’re gone.”
Orleans officials aren’t the only ones to fight back either—the grassroots group, Protect Our Cape Cod Aquifer, is also trying to get Eversource to stop spraying, but their motion was denied in court last month.
