In progress
The Massachusetts Army National Guard’s Camp Edwards sits atop the Cape Cod Aquifer, the primary drinking water source of the Upper Cape. Construction of a multipurpose machine gun range stalled in 2023 after an EPA review identified potential risks to the aquifer. This study will review the current state of soil and groundwater contamination, assess monitoring plans and mitigation strategies for gun range contaminants, evaluate hydrologic and water quality models for contaminant fate and transport, and recommend updates to research, monitoring, and modeling activities to ensure small arms range training poses no significant risk to the underlying aquifer.
Statement of Task
At the request of the Massachusetts Army National Guard, an ad hoc committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will address the following scientific and technical issues related to potential aquifer contamination from small arms ranges. Specifically, the committee will:
1. Provide a brief overview of the history of military and contractor activities contributing to the current state of soil and groundwater contamination at Camp Edwards.
2. Discuss the elements of a conceptual site model for small arms ranges at Camp Edwards, including contaminant sources at firing and target lines, rates and pathways of contaminant movement in soil, pore water, and groundwater, and the potential for human exposure via drinking water.
3. Assess the history and current components of a) comprehensive monitoring plans and b) mitigation strategies for gun range contaminants in soil, pore water, and groundwater at Camp Edwards, considering past contamination, future potential loading, and water quality standards and action levels.
4. Evaluate historic and current hydrologic and water quality models used to predict the fate and transport of contaminants related to small arms ranges at Camp Edwards from their sources to groundwater, assessing their effectiveness in predicting aquifer impacts.
5. Recommend updates to research, monitoring, and modeling activities to ensure small arms range training at Camp Edwards poses no significant risk to the underlying aquifer.
As part of the information-gathering process, the committee will also engage with the local community to understand their perspectives concerning groundwater and soil impacts from small arms ranges at Camp Edwards.
FAQs
FAQs
Upcoming Events
Contributors
Committee
Chair
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Sarah Juckett
Staff Officer
Comment on Provisional Committee Appointments
Viewers may communicate with the National Academies at any time over the project's duration. In addition, formal comments on the provisional appointments to a committee of the National Academies are solicited during the 20-calendar day period following the posting of the membership and, as described below, these comments will be considered before committee membership is finalized. We welcome your comments (Use the Feedback link below). Please note that the appointments made to this committee are provisional, and changes may be made. No appointment shall be considered final until we have evaluated relevant information bearing on the committee's composition and balance. This information will include the confidential written disclosures to The National Academies by each member-designate concerning potential sources of bias and conflict of interest pertaining to his or her service on the committee; information from discussion of the committee's composition and balance that is conducted in closed session at its first event and again whenever its membership changes; and any public comments that we have received on the membership during the 20-calendar day formal public comment period. If additional members are appointed to this committee, an additional 20-calendar day formal public comment period will be allowed. It is through this process that we determine whether the committee contains the requisite expertise to address its task and whether the points of views of individual members are adequately balanced such that the committee as a whole can address its charge objectively.
Conflict of Interest Disclosure
Jennifer Richmond-Bryant has worked extensively with a community in Colfax, Louisiana that has dealt with a hazardous waste site that disposed of military waste on two National Institutes of Environmental Health and Safety (NIEHS)-funded grants. As part of this research, she provided data and testimony to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.
Sponsors
Massachusetts Army National Guard
Staff
Sarah Juckett
Lead
Samuel Kraft
Charles Burgis
Lindsay Moller