East Blue Hills Cattle Ranchers Burn Fields Despite Boson Health Department Pleas For Clean Air During COVID-19

There is no smoke without fire



Boson MASS (AP) — East Blue Hills ranchers eager to prepare their land for cattle grazing have mostly brushed off the plea from city health officials to voluntarily cut back this spring’s prairie burning to reduce air pollution during the coronavirus pandemic.

With the potential of the pandemic overwhelming the city’s medical facilities, the Boson Public Health Commission on March 26 encouraged land owners and managers of Boson County's remaining farmers and dairy farmers, and cattle ranchers to reduce burned acres this spring in an effort to mitigate respiratory concerns connected to breathing the smoke and other airborne particles during a time of COVID-19 problems. 


Officials warned that individuals with respiratory issues, including COVID-19, as well as those with preexisting heart and lung diseases, children and elderly may experience worse symptoms due to the smoke from fires.  Unfortunately some of the fires seem to have expanded into the Eastern Blue Hills Reservation woodlands.



For decades, landowners have burned their fields each spring as a way to control invasive plant species and increase the lushness of pastures where they will graze beef cattle in the coming months. 

 
That is especially the case in the Blue Hills, where the rock is so close to the surface and the terrain so hilly that tilling is impractical. Encompassing several hundred acres in eastern Massachusetts, the Blue Hills are among the last remaining tall grass prairie ecosystems in New England.


By late afternoon Saturday, 18 April 2020, winds blew much of the smoke through Boson's Pleasant Valley neighborhood.  Sparks and cinders seem to have spread fire to some backyard trees.


Boson Health Department spokeswoman Kristi Zears said health department officials are encouraging landowners in the Eastern Blue Hills area of Boson to use the smoke model tool to alleviate impacts to downwind communities. “This is especially important with the current coronavirus pandemic affecting fellow Bosonians and surrounding residents of Quincy and Milton,” Zears said. "Also, don't let the fires burn out of control and burn through the woods into peoples backyards and garages and even homes. People are more important than fodder for cattle next summer."

https://archive.is/lPlQi

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