‘Soiling Your Property and Risking Your Health’: Whiskey Fungus Drama Continues as Residents in This East Coast Town Protest Local Distillery
An electrical station covered in whiskey fungus near Jack Daniel’s in Tennessee. (Photo: AP Photo/John Amis)
The Wiggly Bridge Distillery has been at odds with residents in its hometown of York, Maine, for a few months now over its apparent ties to an outbreak of whiskey fungus, and this time residents have pushed things a little further.
On Tuesday, Seacoast Online reported that white signs reading “Whiskey Fungus Zone” have been popping up around town in the latest chapter of a battle against the local distillery.
In addition to warning prospective visitors about the whiskey fungus, the signs read “Stop Wiggly Bridge Distillery from soiling your property and risking your health” and urge individuals to visit a webpage: fungusfreeyork.com.
The site argues that whiskey fungus can kill local vegetation and coat the sides of properties near the source of the outbreak. Visitors to the website can click a tab that reads “Is My Home Affected” and view a map of all the whiskey fungus “hotspots” in the area.
On Aug. 29, a petition was started by concerned residents, urging the distillery to relocate its rickhouse to a new location.
The neighborhood planning board is set to meet on Thursday to approve Wiggly Bridge’s motion to expand its facilities and get a new rickhouse.
A study from the University of Maine was conducted in August by Tora Johnson, a professor of geographic information systems and environmental studies. In her findings, Johnson concluded that the Wiggly Bridge distillery was responsible for a recent outbreak of the Baudoinia whiskey fungus that cloaked portions of the town in an ashy-gray substance.
Yet the owners of the distillery pushed back, claiming that the experiment wasn’t done in a controlled fashion, and too many external factors could have affected Johnson’s findings.
Multiple residents have found the process painfully slow and unpleasant as they have witnessed their property get covered in the black fungus.
“They just need to put a damper on this operation,” Roger Barzelay commented after signing the petition. “It’s not fair.”
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