The Installation Restoration Program at the Massachusetts Military Reservation is a large and complex effort by the Department of Defense to remediate contamination of the Cape Cod sole-source aquifer by past military activities. More than a dozen contaminant plumes emanate from the base and include solvents, fuels, landfill leachate, and treated wastewater. Many contaminants move readily in the sand and gravel aquifer, and the plumes are miles long and intersect ponds and streams that surround the MMR. The success of the cleanup is based on a sound scientific and technical understanding of contaminant fate and transport. USGS scientists support the IRP team through innovative field and modeling investigations, methods development, and access to the USGS's extensive knowledge of the Cape Cod aquifer and ongoing research at the USGS Cape Cod Toxic Substances Hydrology Research Site at the MMR.

August 2007 – USGS and AFCEE Cooperate on Comprehensive Sampling of Treated-Wastewater Plume
The USGS and AFCEE are cooperating this spring and summer to collect ground-water samples from about 310 wells and 54 fifteen-port multilevel samplers in the Ashumet Valley treated-wastewater plume. The plume was formed by land disposal of treated wastewater at the MMR from 1936 to 1995. The samples are being analyzed for major cations and anions, nutrients, trace metals, detergents, and organic compounds. USGS and AFCEE scientists will compare the 2007 data to results from 1978-79, 1983, 1988, 1994, and 1999-2000 to determine how physical, chemical, and microbiological processes are transporting, transforming, and diluting contaminant concentrations in the plume.

USGS Scientific Investigations Report 2005-5010
Comparison of diffusion- and pumped-sampling methods to monitor volatile organic compounds in ground water, Massachusetts Military Reservation, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, July 1999-December 2002
Abstract Full PDF

USGS Water-Resources Investigations Report 03-4309
Changes in ground-water quality near two granular-iron permeable reactive barriers in a sand and gravel aquifer, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, 1997-2000
Abstract Full PDF

USGS Water-Resources Investigations Report 02-4306
Phosphorus in a ground-water contaminant plume discharging to Ashumet Pond, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, 1999
Abstract Full PDF

USGS Water-Resources Investigations Report 03-4017
Reactive-transport simulation of phosphorus in the sewage plume at the Massachusetts Military Reservation, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Abstract Full PDF

USGS Water-Resources Investigations Report 02-4166
Detection of fresh ground water and a contaminant plume beneath Red Brook Harbor, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, 2000
Abstract Full PDF

June 2007 – Fiber Optics May Help Map Distribution of Ground-Water Flow into Pond through Geochemical Barrier
Cape Cod Toxics scientists demonstrated that a new fiber-optic method to measure temperature may be useful to locate ground-water discharge to surface-water bodies. They tested the method at the geochemical barrier installed by AFCEE in 2004 to intercept a phosphate plume discharging to Ashumet Pond. Locations where cold ground water is discharging to the warm pond water were evident as temperature anomalies along the fiber-optic cable.

April 2007 - LeBlanc Presents the MIT Freeman Lecture
Denis LeBlanc, research hydrologist from the U.S. Geological Survey, presented the 2007 John R. Freeman Lecture at MIT on April 6. The talk, titled "Cape Cod's Billion Dollar Ground-Water Cleanup - The Hydrologic Story," was well-attended by a diverse group of environmental professionals from the academic, regulatory, scientific, and consulting communities. The annual Freeman Lecture is sponsored by the Boston Society of Civil Engineers and the MIT Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/capecodclean.html)

February 2007 - Newly Discovered Lobe of TCE Plume Moving into Toxics Research Area
The Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment Installation Restoration Program has detected the advance of a TCE plume beneath the wastewater-treatment plant and USGS research well array near the MMR. The plume, which contains TCE concentrations as high as 100 ug/L, appears to be a lobe of the Chemical Spill-10 plume that has bypassed a pump-and-treat capture system. AFCEE is presently evaluating options for containment or treatment of the plume. The USGS is working closely with AFCEE and the regulatory agencies to insure that, to the extent possible, the selected remedial option does not disrupt the natural restoration of the wastewater plume or divert the phosphate plume away from the newly installed geochemical barrier at Ashumet Pond.