Falmouth Cape Cod Aquifer EPA Proposed Projects

In 1982 the federal Environmental Protection Agency designated the Cape Cod aquifer as the sole source of principal drinking water for Cape Cod.

The federal EPA on April 27, 2023, issued a draft determination under the Safe Drinking Water Act that a Machine Gun Range proposed to be constructed by the National Guard may contaminate the Cape Cod Aquifer, thereby creating a significant public health hazard. The warning goes on to say:
"There are no reasonably available alternative drinking water sources for Cape Cod residents should the aquifer become contaminated and the risk of irreparable damage to the only drinking water source on Cape Cod is too significant.”

Falmouth pumps its drinking water from a surface reservoir and during the summer requires the use of wells as the summer population increases.

The Falmouth aquifer has over the years been impacted by leaks from military activities which would include a machine gun range, gas stations, landfills, storm drain runoffs, and now closed open sand beds at the Falmouth wastewater treatment facility that were never supposed to leak.

An offshore wind company proposes to build a six-acre converter station in Falmouth Massachusetts. The station will convert 800 megawatts of power from High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) to High Voltage Alternating Current (HVAC). The power exceeds the 680-megawatt output of the old Pilgrim Nuclear Plant.

The proposed station is located in the Falmouth Aquifer. The substation's primary and secondary locations are an industrial application on the southwestern, gradient side of a sole source aquifer, the Sagamore Lens, which feeds multiple Falmouth watersheds flowing to the coast.

There are three basic types of faults at converter stations. Faults due to malfunctions, Inverter failures, and short circuits. Another environmental hazard is the noise from a converter station and loud electric arcs.

There are risks of fire from lightning and overheating of transformer cooling fluids presents a serious hazard. In this work, the risk of fires and explosions is due to the vaporization of the hydrocarbon components of mineral oil, which is used as a transformer cooling fluid in electrical substations.

Secondary containment safety mitigation at substations generally does not work during lightning strikes or fires spreading to the nearby environment.

Offshore Wind is proposing and has been in negotiations with multiple town officials, the Select Board, the Town Manager, the Energy Committee, and several different departments including members of the public since 2019 to place a high voltage direct current onshore electric plant and megawatt cables in Falmouth.

During the proposed construction of an East Boston electric substation litigation was filed against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for not investigating whether the state violated people's civil rights. The EB substation took eight years of permitting to be approved.

The federal EPA has not issued a draft determination under the Safe Drinking Water Act on a proposed offshore wind project from federal waters onshore to a six-acre electric plant in the Falmouth, Cape Cod Aquifer.