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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1976-10-1811 BOARD OF HEALTH MEETING OCOBER 18, 1976 The regular meeting of the Board of Health was held Monday, October 18, 1976 at 7:00 p.m. in Room G5 of the Town Office Building. Members present were: Dr, William L. Cosgrove, Chairman; Mr. James Lambie, Dr. Michael S. Erdos, replacing Dr. Charles Ellicott, and George A. Smith, Director of Public Health. The Board extended greetings to Dr. Erdos as a new member. Minutes of the September 13, 1976 meeting were approved as typed. Mr. Smith reported that Mr. Smoske of 39 Robinson Rd. had filed an ap- SMOSKE plication to increase his present animal permit by one horse. This, as he 39 ROBINSON RD understood, would be a temporary thing from now until May. At the present time there is no stall facilities for this horse but if the permit was granted he does have space for another stall. Dr. Cosgrove said as he recalled Mr. Smoske did not have the required acreage for the two horses he had now but he did receive grazing rights from the Conservation Committee years ago. He also said this has been a trouble- some permit because of the number of complaints about the horses getting loose and running through people's yards, and also the manure problem has been bad at times. At the present time Mr. Smoske does not own the horses he has, they belong to a Mr. & Mrs. Warrington and she is renting space from Mr. Smoske. We had a lot of trouble with this place this Spring. Dr. Erdos asked what acreage was required to keep horses according to our regulations. Dr. Cosgrove said two acres for one horse, three acres for two horses and etc., however, Mr. Smoske's permit is under the "grandfather" clause which would really leave it up to the Board. Dr. Erdos said in view of the regulations we would have legal grounds to deny this permit. Dr. Cosgrove said that was right but quite often these permits vary with the person and the land situation. Dr. Erdos asked what would happen if we do grant this permit. Mr. Smith said we have the right to take a permit away any time we wanted to. He went on to say if we did not grant this permit Mr. Smoske would have the right to appeal by writing a letter to the Board. He went on to say we often grant permission for a person to bring in an extra horse for a short period of time. Dr. Erdos said something like this could be purely our own decision. Dr. Cosgrove said he suggested that this application be denied based on the past records of Mr. Smoske. Mr. Lambie said he felt that Mr. Smoske ran a very marginal operation. After further discussion it was decided that a re -inspection would be made of Mr. Smoske's property and then Mr. Smith would decide whether to recommend approval of this application. 1G� LEAD POISON MRS. REGAN & LEXINGTON PRESS DEAD DOGS Mr. Smith reported to the Board that a Mrs. Joan Regan of Grant Place has claimed that there had been eight cases of bladder cancer in the im- mediate area of her home which was contributing to the burning or melting of lead by the Lexington Press. Mrs. Regan had called the State Health Department, the State Air Pollution Control, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Labor Safety Board. It was determined by all these depart- ments that there was no lead poisoning from this operation. The smoke Mrs. Regan complained of was only grease or oil which were on the lead slugs being melted. Mr. Saco of the Lexington Press was most cooperative. He has now been melting only on days when the air was clear, also the slugs are being cleaned before melting. A new press is to be installed within a year and that will do away with the melting process. Mrs. Regan would like either the Town or Lexington Press to build a fence which would conceal an area where the young people gather to socialize in the evening. About a year ago this same person called to have Mr. Smith check her house for lead-based paint. At that time she would only let him check certain places she wanted tested, not the whole house. It was suggested if she was concerned about lead poisoning she should be tested but this she refused to do. Labor and Industry checked out the people working on the linetype machine and found no lead poisoning. At the request of the E.P.A. Mr. Saco started the smelter and they found that there was no visible violations, there was same smoke but nothing that they or the Air Pollution Commission were concerned about. Dr. Cosgrove asked if thee was anything else that should be done about the problem. Mr. Smith said "No" the State agencies felt everything was okay. Mr. Smith reported that in the past three or four weeks a number of dogs had died in the Hathaway Road area. At the onset of this problem two dogs died and nothing was done about it but after reports of about four dogs dying and four or five dogs being sick under odd circumstances an investigation was made. The police, Animal Control Officers and the S.P.C.A. criminal in- vestigator carried out a door to door inspection of all the area so the people are now aware of the problem. Some of the weeds and also some of the tissue from the dead dogs has been sent to the University of Massachusetts for analysis. They were afraid that this could be something similar to the case in Belchertown where seventy-nine dogs were poisoned. Mr. Smith said that the people did not on the dead dogs so they have not been able however, Angell Memorial has come up with a want to have autopsies done to determine the poison yet, antidote. Dr. Erdos said that at one time he thought they were blaming the drinking of anti -freeze to the deaths of the dogs. Mr. Smith did say that it really didn't look like that now. The police had walked every yard looking for any foreign objects but to date have cane up with no information. Mr. Lambie said this problem is still pending. Mr. Smith said Angell Memorial Hospital were notifying all the veter- inarians in the area about the antidote they found effective. Mr. Smith reported that at the present time the bat problem had quieted BATS down but that was to be expected at this time of year. During the summer when we were having so much trouble with the bat problem we did contact Mr. Lou Wells of the Pesticide Board to request the release of DDT to help com- bat these bats. Mr. Wells did not return the calls left for him and at the present time it seems that everyone is passing the buck, so to speak, the E.P.A. blames the Public Health, Public Health blames the C.D.C. the use Mr. Smith went on to explain that DDT is the only thing that will destroy bats, but until we can get some released so that the exterminators could it we will have to live with the bats. He said we had sent about twenty bats into be tested and only one showed a positive rabies, but this is a problem that must be dealt with and hopefully before next summer when the bats will migrate back or come out of hibernation. Mr. Smith said he had contacted Senator Kennedy's Boston Office because he was the one that got the DDT released for the Randolph area. Dr. Cosgrove asked if Mr. Smith had done all the things the State had asked regarding this problem. Mr. Smith said "Yes" he had written letters to the Food & Drug who seem to be handling these complaints about bats requesting the release of the DDT. So far we have done all we can on this problem. Mr. Lambie suggested that Mr. Smith talk to Charles Lincoln of the E.P.A. and find out what circumstances would allow a waver to the regulation concern- ing DDT. Mr. Smith said there should be some form of policy coming up. The State is discussing a new regulation but actually the E.P.A. will still have precedent. Mr. Smith said he had a phone call from one Mrs. Sheldon Baron stating that she had been watching TV and had heard a report on research being done in the mid -west regarding the exhaust fumes on school buses. The exhaust pipe is located in the rear of the bus directly below the emergency door. It has been fould that carbon monoxide fumes do seep into the bus and children were found to be affected by the fumes. Mr. Smith said we had no information regarding this problem and nothing that would indicate this was a serious problem in this area. Dr. Erdos said that if the buses were traveling at a reasonable speed there would be no problem but he asked if we were responsible for this type of problem. Mr. Smith motor vehicles Dr. Erdos following this said he did not think so but he had called the registry of but they did not appear interested. said the E.R.T. in Concord would probably be interested in type of thing up. CARBON MONOXIDE 14 SWINE FLU Mr. Smith said he also talked to the E.P.A. and Labor and Industry but they are so severely under staffed they felt this was not enough of a problem to get involved with. Dr. Erdos said he felt it was not in our province and we had certainly done all we could. Mr. Smith reported that a Flu Clinic had been planned for Thursday, October 21, 1976 for the people 65 years of age and over and the chronically ill. This clinic has been scheduled to run for five hours. Mr. Smith went on to say that the nursing homes have been supplied with bivalent vaccine for the patients and monovalent vaccine for the help under 65 years of age. A total of 410 doses of bivalent vaccine and 300 doses of monovalent vaccine was distributed to the five nursing homes. To date only 224 doses of bivalent and 42 doses of monovalent has been given. It would look that this might be the way things will end up. Most of the comments have been that the patients do not want these shots. The State gave us the name of an industrial coordinator and we sent a letter to the industrial businesses stating who they should contact thinking the State coordinator would work directly with the industrial plants but instead the State directed them back to us. We have set up plans to provide the firms that are conducting their own clinics with vaccine and etc. The smaller firms we have suggested they send their employees to the clinics in their own towns. After further discussion about the Swine Flu Clinics the Board agreed that things seemed well in hand. Mr. Smith reported that the State Food & Drug Division had been sending inspectors into the Towns without letting the local departments know they STATE were coming. He went on to say he did not mind them coming but quite often INSPECTIONS the State inspectors differed in their ideas than he did. He asked the Board if they would write a letter to the State saying that we did not mind them doing the inspections but they would like the director notified what day they would be inspecting in Lexington. Mr. Smith said quite often an est- aboishment he is working with will be told by the State inspectors that everything is oday but they are not meeting Mr. Smith's standards. The Board agreed this letter should be written. Mr. Smith said he had a call from an agent of the Traveler's Insurance Company regarding a complaint of food poisoning at Chadwick's. Mr. Smith CHADWICK'S said when he received the complaint he did do an inspection at Chadwick's and found a few things wrong but nothing of importance. The lady that had made the complaint had waited about a week before she called, therefore, it was impossible to pick up any of the food that was eaten. The lady clained that her son was ill within 48 hours after eating at Chadwick's. Her son spent about a week in the hospital. Dr. Erdos asked how we could be sure it was food poisoning without proving what food organism the boy was sick with. There didn't seem to be anyway to screen such a problem. Mr. Smith said any place in town could have this problem with the help that was being used today. Most of those employed in food service estab- lishments are very young and do not realize the importance of food handling. 15 Mr. Smith said he thought the Board should be aware that we have had a number of calls about Food Sales. There is a regulation which prohibits FOOD AND food sales unless the food is prepared in an health inspected kitchen, eg. BAKE SALES churches, halls etc. Actually this rules out the home bake sales usually run by churches, 4-H groups etc. We have told people that the Bake Sales are illegal, they still seem to have them so we feel that if we restrict them to cakes, cookies and etc. and make sure they do not sell any meat dishes it is better. Dr. Erdos asked about the "Meals on Wheels" which are abailable to homebound people. Mr. Smith said he didn't know there was any in Lexington, so far we had not heard of them. The same regulation would have to apply to them that unless they were prepared in an inspected kitchen they would be il- legal. Mr. Smith said a number of changes had been made in the present reg- ulations. Chapter 289 of the Articles of 1976 had changed the number of days we must keep dogs in the kennel from seven to ten days. DOGS BOARD Article II which governs the inspection of housing has a number of changes. This is important to the Department because of the number of housing inspections being done for the Housing Authority. A number of regulations which were considered variations are now being considered violations. Mr. Smith said he questioned some of this because it would be impractical to enforce. Title 5 which replaced Article XI of the Sanitary Code regarding subsurface sewage disposal has been changed so that in the future a system being replaced or repaired will require a plan by a certified engineer. This is not good because many times you can only dig around on a repair until you find what can be put in on the area you have to work with and also because the soil that is left is poor. Mr. Smith went on to say that this Title 5 will effect the depart- ment, not so much in new systems because we do not have many new homes on septic systems but on repairs it will be costly to the home owner. Mr. Smith said a number of areas have been approved for public sewer but seem to be moving very slow. The sewer work being done now is very costly because they have left the bad areas in Town until last, lot of ledge and lines that will have to go very deep. This work will now be very slow. TITLE 5 For the upcoming season for swimming pools we should adopt the policy SWIMMING of using the existing regulations until the E.P.A. comes up with some new POOLS regulations,. Motion made and duly passed that Article VI of the State San- itary Code will be used to govern public & semi-public swimming pools. New regulations will also make the Health Department responsible for DAY CARE inspecting the kitchens in Day Care Centers. we also may be responsible CENTERS for licensing or the approval of licensing the Day Care Centers. This is the last year for ceremonial bonfires. BONFIRES A new law just passed now has the milk dealers selling milk off the truck will only pay $2.00 for their licenses which will be good for five years. MILK LICENSES