EPA MAY BAN FIRING ON CAPE COD

["Richard Hugus" <rhugus@cape.com>]

To military base community activists:

E.P.A. Region I (New England) Administrator John DeVillars, responding to
community protest, has sent a warning to the National Guard Bureau in
Washington, D.C. that unless it proves within thirty days that artillery,
mortar, demolition, and small arms training at the Massachusetts Military
Reservation on Cape Cod does not cause harm to groundwater, these
activities must cease. DeVillars said he would invoke EPA's imminent hazard
authority to ban firing at the base. Lead, RDX, and TNT have been found in
groudwater beneath the so-called "impact area." The base, which joined the
NPL list in 1989, has already caused well-documented large-scale pollution
of Cape cod's sole-source aquifer. The military has not only been
uncooperative about providing information about the impact area; it is
proposing expansion of activities in and around it. Senators Kennedy and
Kerry and Congressman Delahunt are expected to attend a forum on the Cape
to discuss this issue March 15. For the first time, large numbers are
questioning whether the base should continue to operate.

Richard Hugus
Otis Conversion Project