HYANNIS – The decision over whether to reopen the town of Barnstable’s shooting range has been delayed until at least the fall.
The 16-acre shooting range, which is located in the West Barnstable Conservation Area, was shut down in December 2012 after the town’s insurance company realized the range was not included in the town’s policy. State environmental officials then realized that the land being used for the range had been purchased as conservation land using state funds. Using the land as a shooting area did not conform with requirements for conservation land.
To solve the problem, the town put together a plan to do a sort of swap in which the shooting range property would be converted from conservation use to municipal use and an equal-sized town-owned parcel off Breeds Hill Road near the technology park that was under municipal use would be changed to conservation use. State environmental officials agreed to the plan.
But there have been further complications after the council heard a report on the cost to clean up the lead from the property and to construct a new modern shooting range.
The cost to clean up the property was estimated at $7.5 to $9.5 million. The cost to develop a modern range is $2 million to $2.5 million.
Barnstable Town Manager Thomas Lynch has submitted a recommendation to the council on how to move forward.
“My recommendation is, I think we should clean up the site, I think we should take care of the lead contamination,” Lynch said. He said that while the contamination happened previously over many, many years of use, that because the discovery of the contamination is under the current administration’s watch, it should be cleaned up by the current administration.
“There are a lot of different ways to do that,” Lynch said.
Lynch said that there have been some high estimates and some less expensive alternatives.
“Once the site is clean, there are some other decisions on what sort of activities you want to have there and the extent of a shooting range,” he said.
Lynch said, on both issues, the council has said, they want to clean up the land, and that they would like 100 percent cost recovery from the operation itself.
“So some combination of that, I think will be able to work,” he said.
The town council heard a presentation last week about the cost to clean the lead from the property and the extent of the property that needs to be cleaned up.
“Dr. Richard Peddicord raised a lot of issues with his report and his initial assessment of the West Barnstable shooting range. . . .We’ve got a whole series of options that we can look at out there,” Lynch said.
Because of the large area that needs to be cleaned up, there is an issue now with the land swap. The two areas no longer correspond in terms of acreage.
“Because we’re talking about more land now, [the land swap] may need to be modified. That issue was basically continued until early fall, by which time we think we’ll have dealt with the state and have figured out what the land mass is out there. If the decision is made to turn it into municipal, we’ll know what that acreage is.” Lynch said.
Lynch said he believes the state will still be comfortable with the swap, because of the value of the tech park land as conservation land.
The day after Peddicord made a presentation to the town council, he met with town officials for an hour and a half to continue to discuss the matter. Lynch, who said the meeting was useful, said they asked Peddicord how other communities around the country have dealt with similar problems.
The Barnstable Town Council is scheduled to discuss the shooting range issue at a workshop on July 9.
“At that, I think they’re going to begin to look at some issues like, what do we want to do with the property; what sort of options do we want to look at; do we need a comprehensive assessment of everything that’s gone out there and some realistic alternatives that might happen out there. There’s a road to go to figure out what happens next, and I think the council’s ready to go down that road,” Lynch said.
