Despite new issues raised by the feds round a proposed machine gun coaching vary at Joint Base Cape Cod, the National Guard says the placement stays finest fitted to the power.
The Environmental Protection Agency has simply issued a draft dedication that the 138-acre gun vary, that includes eight firing lanes with automated targets, may hurt the Cape’s consuming water and create a public well being hazard for greater than 220,000 year-round residents.
There are not any fairly out there various consuming water sources for residents ought to the Cape Cod aquifer turn into contaminated, the EPA stated.
The Massachusetts National Guard desires to arrange a machine gun coaching vary at JBCC’s Camp Edwards as a result of there’s nowhere within the state that permits guardsmen to satisfy Army coaching necessities.
Guardsmen at present must journey to northern Vermont or Fort Drum, N.Y. for coaching.
Ammunition used on the vary can be restricted to copper, and no lead bullets can be fired, in keeping with a web site highlighting the proposed challenge.
“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 stated in an e mail to the Herald on Friday.
Andrew Gottlieb, government director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, stated he and fellow environmental advocates discovered the EPA’s draft dedication gratifying as a result of it thought of the issues they’ve raised for the previous a number of years.
Gottlieb, nevertheless, stays adamant that the challenge just isn’t wanted on the Upper Cape, pointing to how the National Guard is within the midst of a $7.9 million challenge modernizing and redesigning the same sort of gun vary 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 informed the Herald in a cellphone interview Friday.
The EPA stated it can settle for public touch upon the proposed machine gun vary via June 26, and can maintain a public listening to on May 24.
If the aquifer had been to turn into contaminated, surrounding areas would possibly have to assemble and function costly superior consuming water programs, overburdening communities that already face financial hardships, the EPA present in its 20-month scientific overview of the design and operational plans for the proposed web site.
The 4 cities close to the requested gun vary – Bourne, Falmouth, Sandwich and Mashpee – are already grappling with an aquifer vulnerable to contamination from different sources, like chemical spills, freeway runoff, septic tanks and leaking storage tanks, an EPA spokesperson informed 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 stated in an announcement Thursday.
A water remedy program at JBCC, in keeping with the Guard, has purified billions of gallons of water to make sure secure and clear water to the area. Studies throughout the previous decade have decided that small-arms fireplace at present performed at Camp Edwards doesn’t influence the aquifer.
Falmouth and Mashpee are experiencing a lack of water provide attributable to actions at JBCC, Gottlieb stated. The two cities accomplished tasks that carried a price ticket of round $8.5 million to assist mitigate the problems, he stated.
If the EPA maintains its stance when it points a remaining dedication, the $11.5 million challenge wouldn’t be eligible to obtain federal funding.
Gottlieb worries concerning the influence the challenge may have on the Cape financial system, particularly through the summer season, when water provide consumption charges greater than triple as a result of excessive quantity of vacationers who journey to the area.
“If people begin to perceive that we have poor water quality,” he stated, “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.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”