Farmers may quit over cannon noise issue

Two of the farmers who’ve been put at the center of a controversy over a proposed noise ordinance say they’re seriously considering selling their property.

Ted McPhee, who operates Twister Alley Farm on Calef Hill Road in the far southwest corner of town, said Saturday he’s already looking to sell his farm and is considering two smaller properties in Alton. But he also said he wanted the Sanbornton selectmen to resolve the noise ordinance issue quickly because their ruling will effect his decision about buying additional equipment for his farm.

Just down the road, Mark McKay of the Broadview Farm said that if the selectmen approve the noise ordinance as it’s currently written he will sell a significant piece of his land on the west side of Interstate 93 to a developer who can use it to build homes.

What’s disturbing McPhee and McKay is the proposed ordinance that would, among other things, ban the use of propane-fueled noise cannons that they use on their property. The devices, which emit loud intermittent bangs — similar to the sound of shotgun blast — are used to scare away birds and other pests that regularly damage eat their crops, including blueberries, squash and pumpkins.

It’s ironic that, while the farmers are considering abandoning their local agricultural operations, the Selectboard has not yet indicated in any way on which side of the issue it will come down.

“There’s nothing to say we are going to pass it (the ordinance),” said Selectman Steve Ober Saturday. “We’re just taking it slow. There’s no hasty decision.”

Ober was one of the first people to raise the issue regarding the noise cannons at a board meeting about a month ago. At the time, he said he could regularly hear McKay’s cannon at his home, which is located several thousand feet away on the opposite side of a bluff. He said the noise was annoying and that it reminded him of the sound of mortar he’d heard when he was in the military.

Andy Akerman, who lives next to Twister Alley Farm, has also complained to his neighbor, the police and the selectmen.

“I started hearing it two years ago. I talked with him (McPhee) about it. He told me he’d bring it in closer, move it (away from the Akerman’s house), that he’d do it later in the morning if I was up late at night,” the neighbor said. “We sort of worked it out a little bit.

“But the next year — last summer — he just started doing it whenever he wanted,” he said. “It’s almost like a contest now. He’s going to do what he wants and see what the town does.”

Akerman said the cannon disturbs the “peaceful enjoyment of his premises,” which is a basic property owner’s right. “It sounds like a mortar round going off,” he said. “I get stressed for period that it’s on. You’re outside and you hear all the natural noises that you should then all of a sudden there’s a boom. My deck is closest to it, I’d say sometimes at least 200-feet, and you can’t go outside to eat a meal or read a book.”

Stewart Dyment, who also lives in the neighborhood, said he hears McKay’s cannon “every three or four minutes” during the summer season.

“Last year was the first time I really noticed it. I didn’t know where it was coming from,” he said. “The other day I work up early in the morning and my wife was still asleep. As soon as the cannon went off, she woke up. So don’t tell me it doesn’t have an effect on you.”

Standing in Ober’s driveway Saturday afternoon, the cannon sounded like a distant gunshot.

“I know a lot of people on Rand Road who are really ready to strangle the thing,” Dyment added. “No one in this area wants to hear it. My dog is depressed because he’s afraid of thunder.”

Ober said that since last week’s Selectboard meeting he’s received calls from two or three other people complaining about the McPhee’s noise cannon. “Maybe people hear it because it’s on top of a hill,” he said.

But McPhee said he’s received numerous phone calls from neighbors who support the use of his device.

The farmer said he uses the cannon from about 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. over a six-to-eight week period in the heart of the summer — when the fruit on his six-acre blueberry bush patch is beginning to turn color. “When the blueberries start turning blue, the cannon starts going off.”

The device can sound as loud as 120 decibels, according to the brochure that came with it, McPhee said. A motorcycle is allowed by state law to sound about 100 decibels from three feet away, he added.

He sets the cannon to go off intermittently every five-to-six minute. Standing by the mini-cannon among his bushes Saturday, the farmer explained that when he comes out every morning to move and turn the device on, “It looks like an airport (of birds) out here.” (The device is moved daily for best results, he explained.)

McPhee said he purchased the cannon on June 3, 2005 for $260 and that it is effective. In fact, without it his blueberries would have little chance of reaching maturity. “You’d lose 30-to-50 percent of your crop (to birds), according to Cornell University study,” he said.

“In a good year you will have 2,000-to-6,000 pounds per acre. If we pick them they sell for four dollars per pound. If you pick them yourself it’s two dollars per pound or you keep half of what you pick.” Friends and neighbors sometimes help to harvest the crop at the end of the summer, the farmer said.

(McPhee also admitted that for all the work the blueberry acres require the farm does not realize much profit. “But they were here when we bought the place and if they’re here I’m going to work them.”)

McPhee said he’s considered adding more weapons to his arsenal of bird deterrents. “I’ve thought about getting a tripod for the cannon which would cost about two hundred dollars. You can get one with an owl or a hawk on top. And it would turn the cannon around and alter the timing (of the shots) so I wouldn’t have to do it every day.”

But unless the selectmen make a decision soon on the proposed noise ordinance he’s hesitant to spend the money.

Bill Lord, a professor emeritus at the University of New Hampshire in Durham and expert in blueberry growth, said the most effective way to protect the fruit from birds is putting up “netting” that covers the bush area.

McPhee, who’s spoken to Lord, said he’s considered netting but the price is prohibitive. He said it would cost $2,000 to simply put up the first year and “for a small operation like ours it’s just too expensive.” With annual repairs adding perhaps another $200 and the cost of putting up and taking down the netting every year, the netting could add $10,000 to his costs, he said.

In recent years some other means of noise protection have been developed, including a computer-generated sound simulation device that mimics a “birds-in-distress” call, thus discouraging other birds from flying into the area. All would be prohibited under the proposed ordinance as written, McPhee said.

There’s also a “flashing” device that catches sunlight and sends glares of light through the tree area, startling the birds, according to Lord.

The propane cannons have been used for blueberry bird protection for almost 50 years, Lord said, but the data on it — as well as all the other devices — is inconclusive.

“It’s hard to tell how effective all the sound control devices are because they work in some environments and don’t work very well in others,” he said. “The preferred method is netting.”

And Lord said that although netting is expensive, many farmers find that they are able to recoup their costs within a few years.

Akerman said that other blueberry farmers he’s spoken to use other means, including netting and Mylar balloons that resemble hawks, to control the birds’ damage to the fruit. “His (McPhee’s) property is really too small for them. I know there’s one area where you have to have a minimum of six acres to have them and they’re usually used in much larger areas. Some of other farmers just say, there’s some for the birds and some for us. Nobody else in this area is using this cannon.”

After McPhee read about the proposed noise ordinance in The Daily Sun he contacted the state’s Department of Agriculture and the New Hampshire Farm Bureau Federation to gather information about his rights. In fact, the day before the last selectmen’s meeting where the issue was discussed, officials from the Farm Bureau and the UNH Coop Extension Services were at Twister Alley Farm to look over the propane cannon operations.

“This is fine, it’s a normal, acceptable part of blueberry crop protection,” McPhee said the experts told him.

In fact, NH Commission of Agriculture Steve Taylor wrote him an e-mail message indicating the same thing. “The Right-to-Farm Law says that as long as you are following customary and accepted agricultural practices, and you were there operating before the complainant arrived, you can continue,” Taylor wrote.

A letter the Farm Bureau sent to the Board of Selectmen dated June 25 uses similar language, noting that “propane cannons are a customary and accepted pest control method in the blueberry industry… We are also concerned with the effect the noise ordinance may have on other essential and routine farming practices, such as the operation of tractors during what some may consider early morning hours.”

Down the road at Broadview Farm, owner Mark McKay uses his propane noise cannon for very different reasons. He grows pumpkins, squash and a few other late-season vegetables on a portion of 100-acres, as well as other produce on the land of some neighbors.

His cannon is set out amongst the pumpkins and squash from about mid-August to the end of September to scare bears and deer away from the fruit and the plants. “With the butternut or accord squash, the deer will go right down a row and take a bit out of each one (vegetable). Or they’ll mow ‘em right off of the stubs.”

McKay said he purchased his cannon for $350 and has been using it for three or four years.

“It works if you keep moving it,” he said. “If you don’t they get used to it and walk right on by. They’re pretty smart.

“Without it, we could lost up to 75-percent of our crop,” he said. “With the cannon the loss is like 30-percent.”

But unlike McPhee, McKay programs his cannon to blast only every 45 minutes — from dawn to dusk. “You have to do that because deer and bear are nocturnal feeders.”

The schedule makes it a little more difficult but in the agricultural area he lives in, the farmer says he tries to take into consideration any possible problems for his neighbors. “We try to aim it at the woods,” he said.

Like McPhee, McKay has tried other ways of dealing with the animals that eat his crops.

“We’re trying potatoes this year. So far the only problem is a moose keeps trampling on them.

“We’ve even tried planting deer crop, clover and thing like that (to attract the animals away from his vegetables). The seed is expensive and then there’s the planting and preparation,” he explained. “And cutting it too, because deer are like cattle. They won’t eat anything if it’s too high so it’s got to be mowed.”

Without the cannon, the only alternative for the Broadview Farm owner would be to somehow kill the animals eating his crop. “If the cannon doesn’t work you’ve got no choice but to shoot the deer,” he said. He said he’s already discussed the idea with a state game warden.

“We can put out salt licks or day-old donuts from Dunkin Donuts. A salt lick will bring ‘em in in a minute. We could bait ‘em and kill ‘em all – kill ‘em or poison ‘em. The area is way overpopulated (with deer) anyway,” McKay said. “But we don’t want to do that.”

Over the years, McKay says he’s only had one neighbor who has complained to him about the cannon. After making some efforts to accommodate the man, McKay finally made the same threat he made Saturday: if he can’t use the cannon he’ll sell off his land to a developer and move elsewhere where he can farm.

He added that another neighbor who’d bought a piece of property less than five years ago for less than $90,000 had recently sold it for about $300,000.

“We could do that,” he said. “I’m dead serious about the development idea.”