By james art As families and friends gather to watch fireworks over Warner Park on the Fourth of July or during Madison Mallards games, Marie Jacobson’s 94-year-old mother goes into her basement and turns off the lights.
“She survived World War II,” Jacobson said Wednesday at a public meeting about the fireworks. “She lives on the edge of Warner Park and it’s traumatizing. This is real.”
Jacobson, president of a nonprofit advocacy group called Wild Warner, called on city officials to ban fireworks in North Park, similar to the decades-old ban at Vilas Park, adjacent to the zoo. More than a dozen residents spoke out against the fireworks.
“This doesn’t just happen to my mom,” Jacobson said. “We have to consider these people who are traumatized almost every week during the summer.”
One resident said he has asthma and worries about air pollution from fireworks smoke. Another said they moved north to be further away from the noise of events at Breese Stevens Field. Others said concerns about the frequency of fireworks were ignored by city officials issuing permits.
“I feel like maybe we’re being overwhelmed by the business aspects,” said one resident, Susan, who did not provide a last name at the meeting.
Two North Side Aldermen, Amani Latimer Burris and Charles Miadze, hosted the meeting after a similar one in March where residents opposed allowing additional fireworks for a new women’s softball team, the Madison Night Mares.
“When we all got together from different countries, we agreed on one thing and that was we had to have a feedback meeting at the end of the season,” Burris said Wednesday.
Despite opposition from residents in the spring, city officials approved the Mallards’ request for a seventh fireworks show this summer. The permit is granted on the condition that the eagles are feathered or have feathers large enough to fly.
Warner Park is over 200 acres and includes marshland, a dog park, sports fields, trails, the Warner Park Community Recreation Center and the stadium where the Mallards and Nightmares play.
Vern Stenman is president of Big Top Sports & Entertainment, which operates the Mallards, Night Mares, Forward Madison FC and other businesses. Mallards owner Steve Schmidt and general manager Samantha Rubin accompanied Stenman to Wednesday’s meeting.
“The Mallards are here to reflect the city of Madison,” Stenman said. “The way we’re going to be successful going forward, the way we’ve been successful for the first 24 years, is to understand our community and reflect our community and how we bring our games together. That’s my goal.”
The Mallards provided material at the meeting stating that a silent show in July costs 10 times more than a typical fireworks display. The material also says that a typical duck game does not exceed noise levels higher than the sound of heavy traffic.
However, some residents compared the sound of fireworks to a jet plane taking off.
Residents said they appreciate the ducks’ role in fostering a sense of community in the park. Several people said their children and grandchildren had their first job working for the baseball team at the collegiate level.
Much of the criticism argued that too much of a good thing can turn out to be bad in the long run, especially if it comes at the expense of the community that also wants to benefit from the fun.
Wild Warner was co-founded in 2010 by science journalist Jim Carrier and environmental researcher Trish O’Kane, who wrote about Warner Park as a place for environmental education and a safe place for the healing forces of nature. The group has long opposed fireworks at Warner Park, citing concern for nearby veterans, children and pets, among other reasons.
More than a decade ago, Jim Carrier wrote in the Cap Times about the environmental impact on people and wildlife of the annual Fourth of July show called Rhythm and Booms, which subsequently disbanded. On Wednesday, Carrier recalled that story at the community meeting.
“Rhythm and Booms lasted 45 minutes, but used much larger rockets, so it’s really not fair to compare them, except to say that an hour and a half of fireworks—a baseball season’s worth—produced a shower of heavy metals that didn’t disappears,” Carrier said. “They are forever metals. This baseball field is dirty.
Rhythm and Booms was replaced by Shake the Lake in 2015, which is run by the Madison Mallards and sponsored by Festival Foods. Wild Warner is pushing for the annual show to feature light-up drone displays rather than fireworks.