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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1980-04-07-BOS-min \ SELECTMEN'S MEETING APRIL 7, 1980 A regular meeting of the Board of Selectmen was held in the Selectmen's Meeting Room, Town Office Building, on Monday, April 7, 1980, at 7 30 p.m Chairman Miley, Mr Busa, Mrs Battin, Mr Kent, Mr Crain; Mr Hutchinson, Town Manager; Mr Cohen, Town Counsel; Mrs Banks, Assistant to the Town Manager; Mrs McCurdy, Executive Clerk, were present Pest Con- Mr John Andrews, Chairman, and members of the Pest Control Advisory trol Com. Committee met with the Board to discuss the interim report of the committee Interim on mosquito control in Lexington Mr Andrews said that the committee had Mosquito hoped it would be a final report but they now wanted to verify factors Report Initially when we began the study of pest control, we began with the idea we were going to have to trade off the number of mosquitoes that we have against the concerns for the pesticide use; there seem to be conflicting problems and in order to do that we had to understand two things, (1) What are the pesticide problems and those concerns over the pesticide use; (2) What benefits arrderiving from pesticide use? The real surprise of the study came in the area of the benefits of what the pesticide uses are We've heard effectiveness numbers quoted concerning pesticide use in the town that it is 80 to 90 percent effective in eliminating mosquitoes, which gave us and certain other people in town the impression that most, if not all, of the mosquitoes would be eliminated by the pesticide which was being applied but when these effectiveness numbers were translated in terms of actual nuisance abatement, it turned out that the effectiveness was much lower Primarily, the costs are only a small fraction of mosquito breeding areas in Lexington being treated even a single time and that pesticides were being used A lot of mosquito areas that are not in wet- lands are not being addressed in any fashion, and the adulticiding effective- ness has been applied only to a small fraction of the town, to only 5 percent of the town in any given operation, and there are 7 or 8 operations per year Since the relief that is afforded by those operations is only a few days at the most, the average effect is very small; so the net benefits to be de- rived appear to be quite minimal and it seems as if we've had some unrealis- tic expectations of how much mosquito control we can get only spending a few thousand dollars The other concern that came up and is especially important in view of the way in which we have to decide we are goimn trse, is the concern over counterproductive effects; the fact that certainTio- logical checks of mosquito numbers may be destroyed or their effectiveness decreased by the pesticide use So we might be trading off a modest perma- nent suppression that we get from natural controls for a temporary, more dramatic one from the pesticide use The committee felt it impossible to quantify what benefits we were getting, if any, from the pesticides that have been used, and we are still searching for data that enables us to evaluate that for the future As far as pesticide concerns go, there has been concern in two areas, (1) exposure to pesticides/possible health effects; (2) Ecological damage The risks are probably small for human exposure; it is impossible to be absolutely confident as we don't have either health damage in the future or it isn't current now One Selectmen's Meeting - 2 - April 7, 1980 reason being the inadequate scientific knowledge, especially in the area of neurological effects of pesticides upon infants and the unborn and the chronically ill persons; there is practically no data available So, the human exposures as a matter of acceptable risk, and do the benefits justify the risks, obviously that's something different people will have different judgments about. The committee felt if we are going to make a collective decision that people would be exposed, whether they wished to be or not, that we first have to be sure we have considered the alternatives to ex- posure to achieve the same effects without exposing people to pesticides The committee has recommended that we not use chemical insecticides in the way that exposes people until we have the alternatives Since there is no monitoring in Lexington, we don't have the data on what the damage is or what has occurred We recommend using non-chemical approaches and address mosquito breeding areas Areas on private property can be ad- dressed by attempting to enlist the support of the public There are a lot of people who are unaware of the effectiveness of things like repellents; public education measures should be in place and should be pursued regardless of what we do Using. town resources could be effective in eliminating spot problems, and probably this should be done regardless of what you eventually decide to do on mosquito control One of our conclusions is, if we are going to use chemical pesticides in the future, we should be monitoring what their effects are and the inadvertent effects, and we should also look into the use of more selective materials Within the scope of the appropriation, our recdmmendation would be the coordination of existing County sources and our town resources could be di- rected in a better fashion i e. , if there is a problem with a drainage chan- nel that people have been dumping trash in., and this may be a source of breeding mosquitoes in a neighborhood When complaints are received, rather than sending a truck out and spraying the area with pesticides to give two or three days' relief, to have someone go out and inspect the area and per- haps find that source, and we might get more or less permanent relief It is a matter of coordinating things that probably DPW om,other town agencies could do on their own to prevent breeding mosquitoes He did not know if this could be done with in-town resources or would need someone to come in for the summer to inspect and coordinate; this would require some funds as he assumed there is no one within town government to handle that Anyone with the proper biological background could qualify to do this and get the data if that person is able to identify the species of mosquitoes and could put on a pair of hip-boots and walk the swamps Wellesley is in the process of phasing out their adulticiding operation and certain other towns are in the process of getting town meeting approval of a mosquito control program Bedford wants to be selective about what they do with the material Each town could tailor the program to their own concerns Chairman Miley said maybe we could pursue this with the County Extension Service as this is one function of the County that does seem to work. Mr Hutchinson said that a major effort has gone forward on the report but some of the data is incorrect and, if presented, may compromise what you are trying to do The recommendation on the education program is an excellent one, and bringing on staff perhaps even to run our own program without the Middlesex control group, if that's desirable, but at the same time we have to look at what they have been providing and they have been doing certain ditching work, etc Selectmen's Meeting - 3 - April 7, 1980 He emphasized the fact that the town has been doing a great deal on catch basins , brooks, and we use it on a regular basis and have even coordinated it more closely with the Conservation Commission He felt it was an unfair characterization that the town has not been working on stagnant waters that are effectively breeding areas The area of the report on acidic water merits review, and we would be interested in going over our studies, which were independently conducted in relation to our landfill, and try to corre- late it with the data compiled by Mrs Roos Also, it would be appropriate to reference in the report that Mr Mazerall and Mr. Smith pare ex-officio , members of this committee Mr Andrews said the committee is aware of the fact that the town does clean brooks and maintain drainage channels The problem is if an area blocks up, mosquitoes can be coming out of it within a week or 10 days, so it takes a fast reaction sometimes when the problem arises What we really intended to imply is there is no one whose responsibility it is to respond to the complaints in a way that would result in a fast action by the town The complaints result in pesticides being sprayed rather than a check to see what is being done You are right, and we should acknowledge the fact that the town prevents a lot of problems by the regular maintenance procedures Chairman Miley read the following from the report, "Last spring, the mosquito population levels in Lexington were extremely high and mosquito nuisance reports were received from all sections of town This occurred despite an ongoing mosquito control program and an increase in the rate of adulticiding spray operations in comparison with the previous year " She asked if someone could answer if that is the case? Mr Smith said in going over that particular section with the Manager, it is one section he felt was in error There was an increase in adulticiding but the adulticiding work conducted during the last six months that the town participated in the E Middlesex project was conducted during the last week of the season when we had an extremely wet spring We had a lot of rain in early May and the project worked in town adulticiding once during that period The weather conditions were adverse to the point where they couldn't do any adulticiding and it was put off until the end of the year In discussions with Mr Mazerall, we felt it would be better to leave with as many dead mosquitoes as possible We had received a superabundant number of complaints during May and early June and the weather conditions coupled with the fact that the town wasn't charged for the project played a part in this decision being made A lot of work conducted earlier in the season was limited to ditching and drainage work; we felt that the town was going to be withdrawing from the project and it was better to leave the drains and ditches cleaned out in the event that the town didn't seek to return to the project a year later The Board agreed to send copies of the committee's interim report on mosquito control to the Library for possible citizens ' input Chairman Miley thanked the committee members for the report and informed them that the gypsy moth problem would be discussed at a later meeting and consideration would be given to the Manager's request for a transfer of $4,500 1709 Selectmen's Meeting - 4 - April 7, 1980 Chairman Miley read a request from Mr Warren Empey, Acting Director Water of Public Works, for abatement of water bills Abatements Upon motion duly made and seconded, it was voted to abate water bills sent to Corazzini Bros , 1 Blossom Street, $27 45; June Allyn, 915 Mass Avenue, $104 40; incorrect charges Upon motion duly made and seconded, it was voted to approve the Minutes minutes of the Selectmen's meetings of January 28 and March 10, 1980 executive session Upon motion duly made and seconded, it was voted to grant an Auctioneer Auctioneer's license to Donald Burke, 120 Simonds Road, expiring May 31, 1981 Mr Hutchinson recommended that the Board execute the agreement Town Audit with Arthur Andersen for the town audit Arthur Upon motion duly made and seconded, it was voted to sign the Andersen agreement with Arthur Andersen & Co , 100 Federal Street, Boston, to have the Town of Lexington's accounts audited for the period of July 1, 1979 through June 30, 1980 at a fee not to exceed $9,900 Mr Hutchinson said the Board had instructed him to come back with Lexington a recommendation on the commuter bus service to Boston There has been Boston only one complaint and all other comments were extremely favorable. The Express temporary permit expires April 13 and he recommended that Mr Goodman Bus be given a two year contract including an expansion of service to the South Station, subject to the town obtaining approval of the MBTA Mr Goodman is looking at several other options but at this time has not received the necessary permits from other towns and the MBTA. The ad- vantage to the town of a two year contract rather than one year is that it gives a private vendor a sense of stability so that he can actually handle his routes better and he has some sense of guaranteed cash flow, other than the effect that if he does not meet service expectation, we can terminate this arrangement Mr Crain commented that as an out- growth of the cash considerations, he would be in a position to use another approach to capitalization, which might influence new equipment Mr Busa questioned whether the contract could be extended to two years without going out to bid. Mr Hutchinson said it was his understanding that we can since there are no town funds involved Chairman Miley said that Mr Goodman had mentioned he was interested in possibly a Sunday route and one in from Lowell, possibly on a Sunday Mr Hutchinson replied that he is interested in ex- pansion to South Station only, but will be back to the Board Upon motion duly made and seconded, it was voted to approve renewal of the current contract with the Vo cell Bus Company for commuter bus service be- tween Lexington and Boston for a two year period from April 13, 1980 to April 13, 1982 Approval of the expansion of the route to the South Station was also granted Vote is subject to MBTA approval of the contract and routes Mr Hutchinson informed the Board that he had appointed Richard Spiers, ).Co Selectmen's Meeting - 6 - April 7, 1980 Appt Superintendent of the sewer and water division, to coordinate a town safety , Safety program. We are working on it consistent with an insurance report and we Coordin- will have reports and recommendations for the Board ator Brief discussion was held on the cemetery building, and the Board voted to adjourn at 7 55 p m. A true record, Attest �, t&44 t/ 4>i i , e" Executive Clerk, Selectmen f,