Potential location for the Joint Base machine gun range showing 1,500 yard lanes, which have since been reduced to 800 yards. Town of Barnstable
BOURNE – Barnstable County officials have sent a letter to Senator Elizabeth Warren urging her to ensure that the Massachusetts Army National Guard does not get funding extensions for the proposed machine gun range at Joint Base Cape Cod. Senator Warren is on the armed service committee responsible for the funding.
The range would be built on the Upper Cape Water Supply Reserve on Joint Base Cape Cod, with funding potentially included in the Senate’s 2025 National Defense Authorization Act.
Mark Forest said he and the other Commissioners have been pleased with support from lawmakers.
“Hundreds of other residents here on Cape Cod are reaching out to the Senator to urge her to deny that request, to oppose that request,” said Forest.
“And that’s all being debated in the context of a National Defense authorization bill which is working its way through committee and it will eventually come to the senate floor sometime within the next few weeks. So we’re calling on the senator to use their influence on the armed services committee and the Senate to strike this language from being inserted.”
Base officials said they have paired back plans, reducing firing lane lengths and instituting more stringent bullet collection intervals, and that an on-site range would help cut costs.
The full letter is as follows:
Dear Senator Warren,
We are writing to urge you to use your position on the Senate Armed Services Committee to make sure that the Massachusetts Army National Guard’s funding extension request for the multipurpose machine gun range (MPMGR) on the Upper Cape Water Supply Reserve (Reserve) is not included in the Senate’s 2025 National Defense Authorization Act.
As you know, Cape Cod’s Sole Source Aquifer (SSA) is the sole source of Cape Cod’s drinking water, serving more than 210,000 year-round residents and a large summer population that swells with seasonal residents, tourists, and workers. Residents access SSA drinking water
from both public water systems and thousands of private wells dispersed throughout the region.After decades of contamination from military operations and training, the SSA’s water quality in the Upper Cape region is degraded and numerous public drinking water supplies have been impacted. Previous health studies have identified elevated rates of cancer in the region. The widespread pollution has required extensive and ongoing remediation through the Air Force Installation Restoration Program. The 15,000-acre Reserve was established in 2002 to safeguard the water supplies of Cape Cod from any future contamination. It also protects a rich and ecologically significant habitat by converting 15,000 acres of military land into conservation land – protected for future generations under Article 97 of the Massachusetts Constitution.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Sole Source Aquifer Review (SSAR) on the proposed MPMGR determined in April 2023 that the range posed an unacceptable risk to Cape Cod’s Water supplies. The Barnstable County Health and Environmental Department conducted its own review and confirmed these findings. The Safe Drinking Water Act calls on federal agencies and officials to take steps to protect SSAs, and to pursue reasonable alternatives, when they are available. This is the exact situation here. We have an unacceptable risk, and we have a reasonable alternative – Fort Devens.
We urge you to use your position on the Senate Armed Services Committee – just as Congressman Bill Keating did in the House – to make sure that a funding extension for the multipurpose machine gun range on the Upper Cape Water Supply at Joint Base Cape Cod is not included in the National Defense Authorization Act for FY25.
Sincerely,
Barnstable County Board of Regional Commissioners
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