§ 108-1. Findings.
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A.Exposure to hazardous substances can cause cancer, genetic mutation, birth defects, miscarriages, lung, liver, and kidney damage, and death.B.Environmental contamination can bankrupt site owners, lower or destroy land values, drive out residents and industry, depress local economies, and endanger public health.C.Most hazardous substances do not readily decompose into harmless components. They instead remain in highly dangerous forms and penetrate by movement through land and water into and throughout the environment.D.Some hazardous substances are considered explosive and/or extremely hazardous and toxic. These substances have caused death and serious injuries to Fire Department personnel. A comprehensive database containing the types and amounts of toxic or hazardous materials stored or handled within buildings within the Town should be formed in order to provide essential information to Fire Department personnel.E.Barnstable's groundwater is the sole source of its existing and future drinking water supply. When sufficient groundwater exists to saturate a permeable geologic formation so as to yield significant quantities of water through wells or springs, it is known as an aquifer.F.On Cape Cod, some aquifers may be integral with the surface waters, lakes, streams and coastal estuaries which constitute significant recreational and economic resources of the Town. These resources are used for swimming and other water-related recreation, shellfishing and fishing.G.Accidental spills and discharges of petroleum products and other toxic and hazardous materials onto the ground and surface waters have repeatedly threatened the quality of such groundwater supplies and related water resources on Cape Cod and other Massachusetts towns, posing substantial public health and safety hazards and threatening economic losses to the affected communities.H.Unless stricter preventive measures are adopted to manage the storage, use, and generation of toxic and hazardous materials and to prohibit the release of these materials within the Town, further releases of such materials to the aquifer will predictably occur, and with greater frequency and degree of hazard by reason of increasing construction, commercial and industrial development, population, and vehicular traffic in the Town of Barnstable and on Cape Cod.I.The foregoing conclusions are well known and have been confirmed by findings set forth by the Barnstable County Health and Environmental Department, the Cape Cod Commission, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).J.Recent revisions to the Massachusetts Drinking Water Regulations, 310 CMR 22.00, created the need for this chapter to be amended in order to remove potential conflicts between this chapter and 310 CMR 22.00.