Recently, at the Salt Creek Recreation Area, lead and other compounds were removed from the old military shooting range proving the proposed shooting range is a bad idea. What is your response?

The former Salt Creek shooting range and the current Sadie Creek proposal have significant differences both in terms of regulatory requirements and monitoring/clean-up.

Salt Creek

In 1942 and 1943, the United States (US) government obtained through purchase, lease, donation, and condemnation, land necessary to build the coastal artillery battery, Camp Hayden Military Reservation. The completed Camp Hayden included four batteries, a gun installation, barracks, and other buildings. In 1949, the facility was transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard, which continued to use a portion of the property as a small arms firing range until 1957.

In 1959 the County purchased the site from the U.S. government where the Sportsman's Association, a loose collection of civilians, informally used the firing range until the County closed the range in 1968 to expand the park for public use.

During this time, there were no permitting requirements, no regulatory requirements, no programs for monitoring, reclamation or clean-up. Once the area was no longer used as shooting range it was simply left as it was.

Sadie Creek

By contrast, the proposed Sadie Creek site will need to be precisely designed based on current safety, engineering and environmental standards and requirements. Best Management Practices (BMPs), as recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), will be used to reduce lead toxicity and other potential environmental impacts and must be approved prior to any construction.

Compliance with Federal and State laws pertaining to toxic materials such as the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA); the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Model Toxics Act (MTA) will all likely need to be satisfied prior to construction.

The detailed regulatory process to obtain permits will begin with the re-conveyance of the site to the County by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). This process will be followed by the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) review (which will likely require an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)), and issue of local, state and federal permits which are required (see "Permitting" page/tab for the list of other probable required permits)

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1. How will the alleged environmental concerns of unsuitability for the proposed site be addressed?
2. How was the rainfall measurement obtained for the area?
3. Is the project financially viable?
4. Will the shooting range curtail existing recreational uses?
5. Will there be enough people using the range to make it a worthwhile endeavor?
6. How is the County involved in this project?
7. Is the proposal consistent with the Washington State Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan?
8. What conditions, if any, should the DNR place on the reconveyance to coordinate management, including public use of adjacent trust lands?
9. In a flyer posted at the Sadie Creek ORV Trailhead, it stated there will be a ricochet danger from the shooting range. Is this true?
10. Recently, at the Salt Creek Recreation Area, lead and other compounds were removed from the old military shooting range proving the proposed shooting range is a bad idea. What is your response?