BOURNE – The proposed machine gun range at Joint Base Cape Cod continued to receive a cool reception during the Massachusetts National Guard’s public town hall meeting Thursday night where the project was outlined.
Officials representing the National Guard gave presentations on the benefits of the project to the training of soldiers, how it would operate, and maintaining it would have negligible impact on the environment.
Many of the about 200 residents who attended the Zoom meeting remained unconvinced.
One hundred and seventy acres of trees would need to be clear cut to make way for the eight, 800 meter-long firing lanes that would reside on top of the sole source aquifer, the source of Cape’s drinking water.
$11.5 million is the expected cost of the project.
Representatives said that soldiers must currently trek to Vermont to do machine gun training there, and that this new range would cut down on the logistics necessary to complete the requirement.
The National Guard also previously issued a Finding of No Significant Impact statement indicating that the range’s operation has been researched and would have little to no impact on the environment.
“Implementation of the Proposed Action would not have a significant impact on the quality of the human or natural environment,” said a statement on the National Guard’s website.
The representatives said that the base already hosts firearms training of a similar nature and none of it has had any reported impact on the water, soil or wildlife in the area, or on noise level—one of the concerns brought up by residents present.
“A huge amount of planning and effort has gone into this project on the natural resources side of things, and all of that has been extensively briefed and documented,” said Natural Resources and Training Lands Manager for the Massachusetts Army National Guard Jake McCumber.
“The base is such a focal conservation property and success for the Commonwealth because it is a military training site, rather than despite being so. The soldier training provides key habitat protection and the funding and dedicated people and resources to conserve the land in a way that few others can do.”
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