Top of Cape Cod's sole-source aquifer not the place for a machine gun range
I strongly urge the Massachusetts Army National Guard to drop its plans to build the Multi-Purpose Machine Gun Range on Joint Base Cape Cod (JBCC) because of the inadequate environmental assessment regarding the project and the long history of public health and environmental damages past military activities have caused — and continue to cause — to the Upper Cape.
The National Guard assumes that their training requirements are the only priority. Arguments in favor of the projects, and evaluation of alternatives, are given solely in terms of what the Guard needs, what will be most convenient for the Guard, and what will save the most time and money for the Guard. There is no discussion whatever about the merits of the project as seen from the perspective of people living in communities around the base. The communities around the base need fewer, not more, training activities at JBCC.
For nearly 90 years, military units, law enforcement and defense contractors have polluted the Army Guard's Camp Edwards firing ranges and the Central Impact Area on JBCC. These activities included firing small-caliber munitions, firing artillery and mortar rounds, burning excess propellant bags, demolition training with explosives, detonating and/or abandoning unexploded ordnance, training with munitions such as pyrotechnic devices, rockets, grenades and mines, and defense contractors packing, testing, developing, and disposing of weapons.
Contaminant plumes still flow from other parts of JBCC and into the vicinities of public water supplies, residential wells and surface waters, from south-side estuaries to Snake, Johns and Ashumet ponds.
Seven plumes of toxic chemicals in our aquifer — emanating from the Impact Area on Camp Edwards — are currently being extracted and treated. Allowing more damaging activities in and near their sources makes no public health or environmental sense. In addition, investigations have identified explosives, metals, propellants, and pesticides in soil and sediment in the KD range, the Impact Area, J-3 Wetland and other areas on the northern part of the base.
Resources devoted to military training should instead be spent protecting Cape Cod residents from the dangers of polluted water supplies caused by well-documented groundwater plumes traveling out in all directions from the base, which is surrounded by Sandwich, Bourne, Falmouth and Mashpee. These plumes, though many have been and are being extracted and treated to remove toxic chemicals, are an ongoing serious threat to residents in each of the four towns around JBCC.
Military activities on JBCC have been correlated with increased rates of cancers, according to Boston University researchers, and other illnesses as well as the loss of tens of millions of gallons of drinking water. No further construction or expansion of military activities should take place on Camp Edwards until all soil and groundwater pollution from past practices has been contained and cleaned up, and until all potential health impacts of activities on the base have been identified and mitigated.
James Kinney, Cotuit
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