Despite new concerns raised by the feds around a proposed machine gun training range at Joint Base Cape Cod, the National Guard says the location remains best suited for the facility.
The Environmental Protection Agency has just issued a draft determination that the 138-acre gun range, featuring eight firing lanes with automated targets, could harm the Cape’s drinking water and create a public health hazard for more than 220,000 year-round residents.
There are no reasonably available alternative drinking water sources for residents should the Cape Cod aquifer become contaminated, the EPA said.
The Massachusetts National Guard wants to set up a machine gun training range at JBCC’s Camp Edwards because there’s nowhere in the state that allows guardsmen to meet Army training requirements.
Guardsmen currently have to travel to northern Vermont or Fort Drum, N.Y. for training.
Ammunition used on the range would be limited to copper, and no lead bullets would be fired, according to a website highlighting the proposed project.
“The Massachusetts National Guard considered other sites but Camp Edwards located on JBCC is the only Massachusetts National Guard controlled location with the sufficient size to accommodate this range,” a Guard spokesperson said in an email to the Herald on Friday.
Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, said he and fellow environmental advocates found the EPA’s draft determination gratifying because it considered the concerns they’ve raised for the past several years.
Gottlieb, however, remains adamant that the project is not needed on the Upper Cape, pointing to how the National Guard is in the midst of a $7.9 million project modernizing and redesigning a similar type of gun range at Fort Devens in northern central Massachusetts.
“When you add that to the mix combined with their access to the New York facility and Vermont facility, there is no compelling argument as to why this thing is necessary and certainly not at the level of risk it’s asking us to assume,” Gottlieb told the Herald in a phone interview Friday.
The EPA said it will accept public comment on the proposed machine gun range through June 26, and will hold a public hearing on May 24.
If the aquifer were to become contaminated, surrounding areas might need to construct and operate expensive advanced drinking water systems, overburdening communities that already face economic hardships, the EPA found in its 20-month scientific review of the design and operational plans for the proposed site.
The four towns near the requested gun range – Bourne, Falmouth, Sandwich and Mashpee – are already grappling with an aquifer susceptible to contamination from other sources, like chemical spills, highway runoff, septic tanks and leaking storage tanks, an EPA spokesperson told the Herald.
“We have studied the proposed machine gun range very carefully because EPA recognizes the need for our armed forces to maintain readiness and provide training to service members,” EPA Regional Administrator David Cash said in a statement Thursday.
A water treatment program at JBCC, according to the Guard, has purified billions of gallons of water to ensure safe and clean water to the region. Studies within the past decade have determined that small-arms fire currently conducted at Camp Edwards does not impact the aquifer.
Falmouth and Mashpee are experiencing a loss of water supply due to activities at JBCC, Gottlieb said. The two towns completed projects that carried a price tag of around $8.5 million to help mitigate the issues, he said.
If the EPA maintains its stance when it issues a final determination, the $11.5 million project would not be eligible to receive federal funding.
Gottlieb worries about the impact the project could have on the Cape economy, especially during the summer, when water supply consumption rates more than triple due to the high amount of tourists who travel to the region.
“If people begin to perceive that we have poor water quality,” he said, “they’re going to seek other areas to go to, whether it’s a weekend trip, a longer vacation or even an investment into a residential property or business. The potential impacts to the region’s economy are staggering.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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