Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION 



Cape Cod Aquifer Management Project Final Report Page 3 



over prevention of contamination at its source. CCAMP attempted to 

 address these concerns. 



Since its inception, CCAMP 's basic premise has been that groundwater 

 protection must be based on the characteristics of the resource. This 

 approach first required the identification of the resource(s), i.e. the 

 area(s) that contribute recharge to a public-supply well. The next step 

 was to determine the appropriate management strategies within that 

 recharge area that would prevent groundwater contamination. The 

 implementation of such strategies requires an integrated management 

 approach, at all levels of government, with a strong scientific basis for 

 regulatory decision making. 



As a result, CCAMP was charged with the responsibility of evaluating 

 and refining hydrogeological data and scientific methodologies for 

 defining and protecting groundwater resource areas. These analyses are 

 incorporated within this report along with an examination of the 

 institutional (intergovernmental) framework for groundwater protection. 



Cape Cod was chosen as the location for this prototype project because 

 of its strong sense of environmental consciousness and its regional at- 

 tributes which facilitate resource-based management. Especially important 

 is Cape Cod's identity as a discrete region of the state, comprised of 

 towns with common hydrology and geography, and containing a sole -source 

 aquifer. Relative to many areas, there is an abundance of technical infor- 

 mation on groundwater occurrence, flow and contaminant transport which has 

 enabled officials to recognize the need for protection and to target their 

 responses based on their knowledge of the aquifer. 



The Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod spurred interest in 

 researching Cape Cod's groundwater in the early 1970s, subsequently 

 leading to cooperative work from 1974-1986 between USGS , DEQE, Department 

 of Environmental Management (DEM) and CCPEDC. This cooperatively- funded 

 work resulted in a series of reports describing the hydrogeological 

 characteristics of the Cape Cod aquifer, a set of groundwater -flow models, 

 a comparison of housing density and ground-water quality and a description 

 of ground-water quality near the Falmouth landfill. Extensive work on 

 groundwater management was also conducted by CCPEDC and EPA under the 

 Water Quality Management Plan for Cape Cod (September, 1978), in 

 conjunction with the Federal Clean Water Act Amendments, Section 208. 

 Finally, in 1983, Cape Cod's regional planning agency (CCPEDC) mapped the 

 zones of contribution for the county's public -supply wells. This made 

 Cape Cod the first area in New England to have zones of contribution 

 mapped regionwide for public-supply wells. CCAMP was fortunate to have 

 this excellent information base for building and refining its data during 

 the course of the project. 



All these factors made Cape Cod a choice location for the focus of 

 this interagency, cooperative groundwater study. The project recommen- 

 dations and tools that are contained in this report, while based on the 

 situations encountered on Cape Cod, are intended to be transferable to the 

 rest of Massachusetts and much of New England. 



