In a majority vote the residents of Upton were strongly against participating in the Central Mass Mosquito Control Plan (CMMCP).
The Upton Board of Health had received many phone calls over the years regarding mosquito control. Last year after the death of a man who contracted EEE in Westborough surrounding towns were placed on a high alert status. Outdoor activities on public property were cancelled and the town was advised to remain indoors from dusk to dawn. 
The Board of Health, although split on their recommendations on spraying for mosquito control, were all in favor of bringing the article to the people to vote on.
At the Town Meeeting last night there was a large presence of members of the community who are against using pesticides to control mosquitoes arguing two deaths in one year did not warrant exposing all residents to harmful carcinogens. Lara Wahl spoke for several minutes about how harmful the spraying would be to the community and wildlife. Lara also felt the town could do a better job of managing mosquitoes. Many residents were against spraying chemicals. Upton’s town moderator had to remind the community that although everyone has the right to comment they should try not repeat what others have said and only comment with new information. The commentary went on for quite some time.
Tim Deschamps from CMMCP joined the meeting last night to answer questions. He first made the residents aware he was not an employee of a chemical company, he works for the state, he wasn’t getting paid to be there and he drove his own truck to the meeting. He said what those against were saying about the chemicals used to spray and the program was not true and Upton residents should be making their decision based on real facts “not innuendo.”
Michelle Goodwin asked “What would happen if the town voted down this project and we were placed on high alert?” Board of Health member Al Holman said if we do not have CMMCP in place the Board of Health would order source reduction, larviciding, and spraying. The cost would be higher and would have to come out of the town’s budget, where the 45k cost for CMMCP is paid for by state funds. If the town chose not to participate in the program the 45k from the state could be used for something else.
After an extended commenting the motion was put to vote and the town overwhelming voted down participating in CMMCP.
UPTON DAILY 
Couple things, My central thesis was that the over use of “nuisance spraying” leads to resilient mosquitoes, who then breed, and will be harder to kill in an event of a real break-out. This is common sense. If you over-use antibiotics when you don’t really need them, then when you need them the most, they don’t work. As far as Holman saying it would cots the town more, I would like to see the data and “facts” of how he has come up with this assertion. The Mendon citizens put many hours into research and phone calls to officials and determined that this would cost far less, not more. I am all for mosquito management, but with this particular district’s Mosquito control project focusing more on Nuisnace spraying than anything else (other towns confirmed that little to no outreach and education was being done in towns who are currently entrenched in this program) it is easy to see that the individuals who run this program are clearly not in the position to understand nor properly handle the delicate nature of the eco-system, and this could lead to reduced predators of mosquito population, and our dependancy on expensive harmful chemicals. Also, I never said “Carcinogen” at the meeting, I said “Endorcrine disrupter”. And I also said “Aggregate exposure” – which means that over time there could be effects on human health. This is not inuendo, but fact. All this was well researched. Just because some people don’t like to hear common sense and the Truth, does not make it made up. The risks far out-weigh the… well in this case there is not any benefit, since this program was so poorly designed. If we had a common sense approach to Mosquito control, people would be happy to stand behind it. The boyscouts building bat-houses for example would be a great step towards attaining a similar goal. 1 Bat can eat 3,000 mosquitoes in a single night! So much we can do. Real hard facts from the data below: “Sumithrin (AnvilTM, d-Phenothrin)
Sumithrin has been registered for use since 1975. It is used to control adult mosquitoes and as an insecticide in transport vehicles, commercial, industrial and institutional non-food areas, in homes, gardens, greenhouses and on pets. Chemically, it is an ester of chrysanthemic acid and alcohol. It is a combination of two cis and two trans isomers. Sumithrin is slightly toxic and is rated EPA toxicity class IV (I = most toxic, IV = least toxic) bearing the word CAUTION on its label. The oral rat LD50 is greater than 5,000 mg/kg, and the LC50 for inhalation is greater than 1210 mg/m3. Sumithrin degrades rapidly, with a half-life of 1-2 days under dry, sunny conditions. Under flooded conditions, the half-life increases to 2-4 weeks for the trans isomer and 1-2 months for the cis isomer. In grain silos, with no sunlight and little air circulation, most of the product still remains after one year (WHO, 1990).
Symptoms of acute sumithrin poisoning include hyperexcitability, prostration, slow respiration, salivation, tremor, ataxia and paralysis. Chronic feeding studies resulted in increased liver weights in both males and females. In rat studies, sumithrin was completely excreted in 3-7 days (WHO, 1990). Studies have shown that sumithrin is an endocrine disruptor, demonstrating significant estrogenicity and increases the level of estrogen in breast cancer cell, suggesting that sumithrin may increase the risk of breast cancer (Go et al., 1999). http://www.beyondpesticides.org/infoservices/pesticidefactsheets/toxic/pyrethroid.php
Go to the site and you will see the scientific research to back this up.
Another person spreading misinformation and fear folks. It’s clear she spoke to two like minded “mendon” residents who also spread the same misinformation. Don’t have time to correct her now but if something happens in Upton you will know who to thank for it…
Talk about fear mongering and mis-information! Mike Watson, the whole reason why the Majority of the town who was present at the meeting voted this down is because of how the cons out-weighed the pros in this particular program, and how ineffective and poorly designed this program was, in fact leading to potentially do the opposite of what it’s meant to do. Nice to spew hateful bully tactics at people when you don’t get your way, isn’t it. Why didn’t you speak up at the meeting with your facts and research as so many of us did? The reason why we vote in this country is to determine what the majority of people want to be exposed to and not exposed to. We want to put a program in place that will actually be effective at minimizing West Nile and EEE, not just one that relies on the systematic routine spraying of chemicals which creates an excess of pesticide resistant mosquitoes, so the spray doesn’t work when we need it the most. In an event of an outbreak we need the chemicals to work for us. No one is against this. But sadly this program was mostly focused in Nuisance spraying which would of created just that. It’s common sense. I fully support a smart program that helps keep Upton safe. I hope the DPW, BOH, in both Mendon and Upton work together on this. There is so much we can do.