A proposed machine gun training range at Joint Base Cape Cod could contaminate the sole source of public drinking water on the Cape, 'creating a significant public health hazard,' according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
A truck drives past a welcome sign to Joint Base Cape Cod, Monday, Sept. 22, 2014, in Sandwich, Mass.
Cape Cod’s drinking water comes from one giant underground reservoir — the Cape Cod Aquifer — which makes it especially vulnerable to contamination. EPA Regional Administrator David Cash said that the proposed 138-acre gun range would use more than a million bullets a year, releasing metals and chemical propellants into the environment, including copper, nitroglycerin, manganese and strontium.
"It's our job to make sure that when you turn on the tap and you're giving your kid a glass of water, you're not worried about what's in that water. And this would have threatened that." "Water is everything to Cape Cod. If we don't have clean water to drink, we don't have anything," said Andrew Gottlieb, the executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, an environmental advocacy group.
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