Straight shooters talk about range

Bayview residents turned a supposedly quick update on plans to expand the Farragut State Park shooting range into an impromptu referendum on the project’s merits Wednesday.

To the surprise of the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation Board, about 30 people – from both sides of the issue – crowded into the conference room at the Shilo Inn in Coeur d’Alene for the public hearing.

Chairman Ernest Lombard, of Boise, seemed flustered as he saw the list of people signed up to speak. Yet the board fit in the majority of comments, which focused on whether the expansion would result in more noise for neighbors and park users.

“We don’t usually set aside hours of time for this, because we usually only have two or three people speak,” Lombard said.

Locals said the state’s proposal to expand the state-run shooting range has divided the small town on the south shore of Lake Pend Oreille.

Both opponents and proponents have petitions, each with about 500 signatures. The Bayview Chamber of Commerce plans to take an official vote on whether to support the project in early May.

The state parks board has no say in the $3.2 million expansion, which is aimed at improving safety and reducing noise and would allow more people to use the range. The state parks department co-manages Farragut with the Idaho Fish and Game Department. Wednesday’s hearing was intended to update the parks board on Fish and Game’s progress on the shooting range and give frustrated neighbors another chance to vent.

“I don’t want the expectation to be that somehow we will vote against this,” said board member Latham Williams, of Ketchum. “That’s not our role.”

The board did encourage Fish and Game to use all the science available to ensure the range becomes quieter.

Fish and Game spokesman Dave Leptich said the agency will work with neighbors to mitigate any potential gunfire noise. Yet he was firm in telling residents the expansion will happen during the next five to 10 years. “We have a lot of time along the way to listen,” he said.

Leptich said that with the expansion, neighbors and park users should actually hear less noise than they do now. The state will monitor noise levels to ensure that’s happening.

The expansion will reconfigure the site, dividing it into seven shooting areas. That means the general public will have use of the site during shooting competitions. The changes will allow the state to use more sound-absorbing techniques such as earthen berms and covered stations that reduce sound dispersion. State officials say the reconfiguration also will improve safety.

The first phase began this week as the state cleared a swath around the perimeter of the shooting range. A fence will go up next week to protect hikers, bikers, horseback riders and other park users.

Progress will depend on how much money is available through grants, donations and in-kind labor. Leptich said the expansion might cost half of the $3.2 million cost estimate.

The next step is to build a supervisor’s station so the range can have a person on duty full time.

Some neighbors along the popular state park on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille want the expansion stopped – at least until more studies are done to ensure that the noise from the range won’t make them feel as if they are living in a war zone.

They say they don’t oppose the current shooting range, just any expansion that would increase noise.

Fish and Game officials have already said they will monitor the park’s boundary to ensure the noise doesn’t exceed 80 decibels.

An acoustics engineer hired by critics of the expansion performed noise tests Saturday at seven locations on private property outside the park. The levels ranged from 80.7 decibels to 50.5 decibels about a mile away in Bayview.

Engineer Duane Nightingale said that 80 decibels is equal to a lawn mower at five feet away or the sound of a garbage disposal from three feet. He suggested that the shooting range have a larger buffer area to protect neighbors.

“It sounds like World War III,” said neighbor Dorothy Eldridge. “It rattles our windows.”

Other neighbors and many local shooting groups applaud the project because it will allow more shooters to use the facility.

Dan and Mary Zaccanti support the expansion, especially in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Their son is in the military, stationed in Iraq.

“I want our military and law enforcement to be prepared, and if it means training in my back yard I’m all for it,” Mary Zaccanit said.