Last week, APCC broke the news that the National Guard has modified its proposed multipurpose machine gun range (MPMGR). I heard from a lot of people asking what they can do to help protect the Upper Cape Water Supply Reserve. It is our practice to only ask our members to act when the path to achieving an outcome is clear. Clarity is lacking in this instance because the Guard’s new proposal has raised more questions than it answers.
The interesting point here is that if this is really a serious proposal, the Guard should come out and answer a few questions. Nothing tamps down questions like an open and honest communication plan that anticipates and answers the concerns of the public.
Anticipating and forthrightly addressing public concerns has not yet been an approach that the Guard has embraced. Should that change, here are some top-of-mind questions the Guard might want to answer as a down payment on a better relationship:
- The justification for the size and scale of the original proposal was that the full 10-lane range was needed to meet training certification requirements. Does the scaled-back range meet certification requirements? If so, doesn’t that mean the original proposal was larger than it needed to be to meet certification requirements? If not, what’s the point of this revised proposal if troops will still need to train out of state?
- Will the Guard, if given permission to build the reduced eight-lane range, pursue the construction of the additional two lanes later? If yes, isn’t phasing the project simply a way to appear to have reduced the project when its full construction remains the objective?
- Is this scaled-down project a strategic move to size the project to the amount of money appropriated so that the original appropriation doesn’t expire?
- Since EPA recommended collection of spent munitions once every six months and the new proposal collects spent munitions every 10 years at each range, exactly how is that schedule responsive to EPA’s concerns?
- Explain why the very similar new range at Fort Devens cannot be used now that the two lanes accommodating the largest guns have been removed from the proposal.
- Will the Guard seek approval of the state’s Environmental Management Commission for construction before signing a construction contract or beginning construction and if so, on what timeline?
There are many more questions that need to be answered, but addressing the ones above would be a reasonable start. The flipside of the coin is that continued silence from the Guard can reasonably lead to the conclusion that the withheld answers validate the concerns that we and many others have about the continued threat to the water supply. The Guard, and the Guard alone, can end speculation by speaking directly and forthrightly about what this revised proposal is and is not. Will they?
