(774) 353‐6511 POCCAcapecod.org poccacapecod@gmail.com
Helping to Preserve Our Quality of Life on Cape Cod
May 7, 2015 Mr. John Lebeaux Commissioner Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources 251 Causeway Street, Suite 500 Boston, Massachusetts 02114 Dear Commissioner Lebeaux: We are writing to ask you to deny approval for Eversource’s proposed yearly operational plan to spray herbicides along the utility rights-of-way on Cape Cod. We are also asking that you conduct an overall review of MDAR’s past performance in overseeing NSTAR’s use of pesticides on Cape Cod. Finally, we ask that you support our recommendation to remove oversight of this program from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources to the Department of Environmental Protection. Water Quality is the most critical challenge facing Cape Cod as towns throughout the Cape move to spending billions of dollars to improve our water quality. Emerging contaminants such as pharmaceuticals and pesticides are a threat to the Cape’s sole source aquifer. Rather than splinter efforts between MDAR and DEP, we believe it’s appropriate for DEP to take responsibility for this program as part of their overall responsibility to protect our waters. Last year, with support from Governor Patrick’s office, we asked with copies of all public comments, with logs of NSTAR’s information about any enforcement actions taken by MDAR in spraying activities. This request got lost as the old administration thank you for having your office respond to our request.
MDAR to provide us spraying, and with overseeing NSTAR’s wound down and we
We’ve completed an analysis of the information we received and have provided some high level comments here. If you’d like to review our analysis in more detail, we’d welcome the opportunity to meet with you.
Public Comments On October 7th last year, we met with Gary Davis, chief counsel for EEA, and Dorrie Pizzella, chief of staff for MDAR. At that time, they indicated MDAR had received about 90 comments, most simply objecting to spraying. They also indicated MDAR was not obligated to respond to those comments.
(774) 353‐6511 POCCAcapecod.org poccacapecod@gmail.com