Longtime Harvard resident Sharon McCarthy, who currently chairs the Board of Health and has served on multiple town boards and committees over the years, will move to Woods Hole in a few weeks. McCarthy’s term expires June 30, and the board has recommended the appointment of Brad Holub as its third member starting July 1.
In an interview with the Press, McCarthy said she moved to Harvard in 1987 with her husband and raised her children here. In addition to her 12 years on the Board of Health, she has served on the School Committee, the Harvard Charter Commission, and the Climate Initiative Committee. She has also been on the steering committee of Arm in Arm, a community organization that supports diversity and inclusion, since its formation in 2016.
During her time on the Board of Health, McCarthy said she is most proud of the outreach information the board provided during the early years of the COVID-19 outbreak. She said board members worked hard to provide residents with information that included prevention, testing, contact tracing, and vaccination. The board also ran multiple clinics in town when vaccinations became available.
Sharon McCarthy. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
Another initiative that McCarthy is proud of is the board’s response to the algae bloom that happened in Bare Hill Pond in 2021. She said she was instrumental in getting the training necessary to use the screening tool to monitor the pond for harmful algae.
McCarthy also talked about her role in getting PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) testing for private wells in northwest Harvard. She said that at a meeting of the Restoration Advisory Board in 2019, she asked an Army representative for private well testing in the area of Harvard closest to where high PFAS concentrations had been found in the groundwater at Devens. She said she offered to give him a sampling of wells to test, and he said the Army would check them all. As a result, PFAS levels above the state’s maximum contaminant level were found in the water from several private wells in that area.
The next big issue, McCarthy said, is how to “prudently and efficiently” spend the opioid settlement funds the town is receiving. She is proposing a working group spearheaded by the board to advise the town on how to spend the settlement money. (See story on page 1.) Her goal before leaving is to get her successor oriented so that he can take the lead role in that effort.
As for the challenges the board will face over the coming years, she said that the main challenge is that small towns like Harvard have a high dependence on volunteer boards, including the Board of Health. Towns like Lexington and Concord have health departments, she said, adding, “You need infrastructure to do it right. When you run on the backs of volunteers, it’s hard.”
McCarthy said she has already subscribed to the Falmouth Enterprise, the Woods Hole area weekly newspaper, and about a month ago she saw an article about the local Board of Health’s discussion of what needs to be done to get groundwater discharge permits from the state to proceed with an area sewer project. She said her first thought was, “I’m glad it’s not me.”
