OTIS AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE

'Otis Air National Guard Base' is an Air National Guard station located within the Massachusetts Military Reservation (MMR), a military training facility, located on the upper western portion of Cape Cod, in Falmouth, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States.
The host unit on Otis ANGB is the 102nd Fighter Wing (Air Combat Command). Part of the facility is called 'Cape Cod Air Force Station' (AFS). Also on Otis is the 253rd Combat Communications Group, the 267th Combat Communications Squadron and the 202nd Weather Flight.

Contents

History

Environmental issues

References

External links

History

From 1955 through 1972 the U.S. Air Force operated 'Otis Air Force Base' on MMR.
In 1973 Massachusetts Governor Frank Sargent appointed the Otis Task Force to oversee a phase-down of military activities at MMR. The major concern of Cape residents was the fate of base property and impacts on the local economy as military activities decreased.
According to the 102nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs office Otis Air National Guard Base is named for pilot, flight surgeon, and eminent Boston City Hospital surgeon, Lt. Frank "Jesse" Otis, a member of the 101st Observation Squadron who was killed on Jan. 11, 1937 when his Douglas O-46A crashed while on a cross-country training mission.
In 1938, the landing field area at Camp Edwards was named Otis Field in memory of the Boston flying physician. Ten years later the base was renamed Otis Air Force Base in his honor. Until 1973, it was the largest Aerospace Defense Command base in the world and is the only base named for a doctor.
In 1977, Otis AFB was officially redistributed with the establishment of boundary lines which divided the complex into several installations, all within the confines of the original base. Established was Otis Air National Guard base, Camp Edwards (a POW camp during WWII), and the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod. Together they form the Massachusetts Military Reservation.
In 1978, the Air Force returned with the construction of the Precision Acquisition Vehicle Entry Phased Array Warning System (PAVE PAWS) near the Cape Cod Canal. PAVE PAWS is designed to detect airborne ballistic missiles and monitor orbiting satellites.
On September 11, 2001 FAA Boston center contacted the base at 8:34 notifying them of the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11. Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Duffy and Major Daniel Nash flew F-15 fighters out of the base heading toward New York City to intercept the plane. Conflicting reports say they departed somewhere between 8:46 and 8:52. They flew at supersonic speed.

Environmental issues

Military operations in the early years at Otis included the use of petroleum products and other hazardous materials such as fuels, motor oils, and cleaning solvents and the generation of associated wastes. Consistent with practices of other industries at the time, it was common practice for many years to dispose of such wastes in landfills, drywells, sumps, and the sewage treatment plant. Spills and leaks also occurred. These activities have resulted in serious impacts to the Upper Cape’s groundwater resources. As a direct result of the threats from waste plumes in the groundwater, much of the water supply in the surrounding area was converted from wells to municipal water sources.
In towns near the PAVE PAWS radar on Otis Air Force Base there was significant concern about possible adverse effects on health of humans resulting from PAVE PAWS radiation. In 1978 the EPA and the US Air Force School of Medicine decided that no such threat to human health was plausible. At the request of local residents, in 1979, two panels formed by the National Research Council reviewed existing data on the radar and on comparable systems: an engineering panel and a biomedical panel. Neither panel found any cause for concern, but the panels did recommend additional studies. The local communities' concerns peaked again in the late 1990s, and another National Research Council panel studied not only previously available data, but also engineering measurements newly gathered by the Air Force, epidemiological data gathered by local public health authorities, and the results of studies on various other systems. The report of this latest NRC panel, issued in 2005, available from the National Academies Press both online and in hardcopy, finds no evidence for adverse health effects from PAVE PAWS. There are nearby clusters of certain types of cancer, but as is often true in cluster studies, there are so many confounding effects that any possible effect due to PAVE PAWS is indiscernable. Further, no plausible causal link to PAVE PAWS on health of nearby residents has been discovered. Of scientific interest is the possibility that growth rates of vegetation close to the radar and exposed to the direct radar beam may possibly be retarded, but no plausible connection of that possibility to effects on human health is known.

References

External links

★ Otis Air National Guard Base (official site)

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