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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Condition of shooting pit better due to volunteers

Chris Farnsworth, 12, of Post Falls, helps pick up trash with other Silver Lake Young Marines at a gravel pit near Hayden Lake. (Tyler Tjomsland)

A month ago, it might have been easy to mistake the Hayden Creek shooting pit for a junk-yard.

Shooters use whatever they want as targets there, said Deputy Shawn Somershoe of the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department. The problem is they often don’t pack it out when they leave.

Broken glass, shell casings, appliances, computers, VCRs and even cars riddled with bullet holes normally litter the surface of the gravel pit. Even some of the trees above the embankment that is supposed to serve as a backdrop for shooters have been sliced in half from gunshots.

“We had trash pretty much everywhere,” Somershoe said. “Anything they can use as a target they will.”

But once locals heard the news that the Forest Service might shut down Hayden Creek access to the Idaho Panhandle National Forest due to the condition of the pit, they began stepping up efforts to keep it clean.

A crew of about 15 children and adults affiliated with the Silver Lake Young Marines ventured out to the site Thursday morning to haul away whatever garbage they could grab. And Shaun Thomas, with Merwin’s Towing, got the go-ahead to use a company truck on his day off to drive the trash to a dump.

“I’d just like to see people pick up after themselves,” Thomas said. “Instead of taking it to the dump, they have the pleasure of shooting it and watching it blow up and then pick up the mess after they’re done.”

The recent efforts have made a world of difference for the pit, said Somershoe, who worked with a crew of Forest Service members and nearly 30 inmates to pick up trash there in May.

“This is about 95 percent better than what it was a month ago,” he said. “If we could compare pictures, it would be night and day.”

Most concerning to Joshua McKay, the commanding officer of the Silver Lake Young Marines, were the four televisions he saw on the range last week.

“It looks like someone already got them,” he said. “Electronics are my biggest concern. Somebody will dump that out here and we’ve got heavy metals being washed through it.”

Less than a mile down the dirt road at other sites, larger waste remained on the ground. A refrigerator covered with splotches of paint and bullet holes lay mere feet away from the creek.

The heavy metals draining from the litter pose a threat to water quality in the creek and nearby Hayden Lake, though efforts to look into whether the litter is polluting the water have not begun, said Dan Scaife, the acting ranger for the Coeur d’Alene River Ranger District.

McKay hopes the Forest Service will not shut down access to the pit, because he sees it as a prime place to shoot with its seclusion out in the woods and its long and relatively flat dirt surface. But he would like to see the Army Corps of Engineers find a way to improve drainage between the pit and the creek.

Staffed cleanups of the pit can be expensive for the Forest Service, though, Scaife said. They often require multiple loads in dump trucks and take staff away from their regular duties. So the burden of cleaning the pit will fall mostly on the public.

“We can do things to help facilitate, but it’s not really a wise use of taxpayer dollars to clean up those facilities,” he said. “Not that we won’t assist when we can.”

McKay said he is willing to keep picking up trash from the area as long as the pit stays open for shooters.