From the start, Silent Spring Institute researchers were interested in whether environmental toxins were having a particular influence on the Cape's drinking water, which is served by a sole source aquifer and leaches through sandy soil that in theory allows wastewater – and contaminants – to drain into the water supply more quickly than through other types of soil.
Silent Spring researchers have tested water in public and private wells for the presence of chemicals known as emerging contaminants and have visited scores of Cape homes to measure for the presence of hormone-disrupting chemicals.〔